What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Slowvehicle]

<focus snip>
SlowVehicle

I am unsure what you're saying has to do with any argument I've made recently.

One of the classes of problems with any kind of hearsay evidence is the difficulty of provenance. If the piece of evidence offered assumes foundational facts that are not in the record, that is, that have not themselves been vetted for validity, the evidence is inadmissable.

Your hearsay statement that you read a copy of a copy of a letter ostensibly from your ex-boyfriend wherein your ex-boyfriend told you that his old nanny told him that she was the lost Dauphin would require corroboration that you had a boyfriend; that he had a nanny, and, in a meticulous courtroom, that the Dauphin had, in fact, been lost...even if it fell under one or another of the hearsay exceptions. And it would still be open to impeachment.

Consider the statement against interest: "Billy Willis has shot me while we were digging a hole to the center of the hollow earth, so that we could rob all the banks, and I have got to die". Even if it were considered admissible under one or another of the hearsay exceptions, it would still not be evidence that the earth is, in fact, hollow. That assumption would have to be supported.

And, of course, in real life it is more complicated than that.

 

[maximara]

One of the classes of problems with any kind of hearsay evidence is the difficulty of provenance. If the piece of evidence offered assumes foundational facts that are not in the record, that is, that have not themselves been vetted for validity, the evidence is inadmissable.

Right, and look at what Paul (ie Romans, First Corinthians, Second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, First Thessalonians, and Philemon) is actually giving us in terms of details we can go out and check.

Paul claims that he spent 15 days with Peter bumping in James "brother" (biological or spiritual we're not sure) of the Lord during that time.

Given how little Paul give us regarding Jesus what did he do for those 15 days? Didn't Paul ask about the miracles Jesus perhaps or the parables Jesus said or anything else we see in the Gospel account?

More over the meeting raises another question. If Paul was writing as early as the 50s what was Peter doing? Even if Peter himself was illiterate he could have dictated a Gospel or at least some letters so where is his writings?

The more you dig the more you wonder.

 

[eight bits]

IanS

Josephus and Tacitus both have severe problems as evidence for a historical Jesus apart from any concern about hearsay. We seem to agree about something?

max

I have throughout defined my terms. There is no arguing definitions. If you'd like to discuss something else, other than what I have been discussing, then you needn't have that discussion with me. Nor I with you.

You may wish to rethink, however, how much you actually wish to pursue a tautology with anybody. If some category of evidence, regardless of anything else about it, cannot be adequately substantiated, by definition, then any such evidence is inadequate. Yes, it is. So what?

Your example is a great illustration of the difference between a dictionary "definition," and a defintion in the sense of a suitable premise for analysis and inquiry. I'll use it if it ever comes up in a discussion.

Except there are other older figures who we have much better provenance.

So what? Their existence or non-eistence doesn't bear on whether Jesus existed. You have more confidence in the resolution of some ancient uncertainties than of others. So do I. That doesn't help resolve the uncertainty about Jesus.

Slowvehicle

Consider the statement against interest: "Billy Willis has shot me while we were digging a hole to the center of the hollow earth, so that we could rob all the banks, and I have got to die". Even if it were considered admissible under one or another of the hearsay exceptions, it would still not be evidence that the earth is, in fact, hollow. That assumption would have to be supported.

I agree with your analysis, but I am unsure how it advances our discussion. Off hand, I can't see why or how the hollowness of the Earth would be litigated in a court of law. Let's step out of the courtroom, then. Nothing on-topic in this thread will happen in a courtroom anyway.

Even in ordinary opinion-forming inference, it isn't clear how such a statement bears on the question of hollowness, starting with there isn't any uncertainty about that (a necessary feature for evidence to bear is that there be an uncertainty for it to bear upon). It is not as if the statement reports how this "experiment" turned out; whatever experiment there may have been appears to have been interrupted. The statement just isn't about the hollowness of the Earth.

The statement does seem to have some potential relevance to who may have shot the quoted speaker. If I were a historian, then it may be interesting that somebody thought that Billy Willis was the shooter, or thought the victim did. The report might easily influence my opinion on the question, if the question itself were interesting. Why not?

 

[Belz...]

You either see where this story is going, or you don't.

I do. This is going to a place where you redefine every sort of evidence as "hearsay" to strengthen your case and avoid having to admit that you were in error.

Who's we? If you can't draw conclusions, then don't.

You can draw conclusions from near-absent evidence if you want. I'm quite happy with admitting that I don't know.

 

[Belz...]

You have more confidence in the resolution of some ancient uncertainties than of others. So do I. That doesn't help resolve the uncertainty about Jesus.

There is no way to resolve said uncertainty right now, and there probably never will be. Some of us are simply pointing out that the HJ certainty expressed by Stone and Piggy is unwarranted.

 

[Slowvehicle]

I agree with your analysis, but I am unsure how it advances our discussion. Off hand, I can't see why or how the hollowness of the Earth would be litigated in a court of law. Let's step out of the courtroom, then. Nothing on-topic in this thread will happen in a courtroom anyway.

IIRC, it was you who started the "hearsay" derail. "hearsay" is a courtroom concept.

Even in ordinary opinion-forming inference, it isn't clear how such a statement bears on the question of hollowness, starting with there isn't any uncertainty about that (a necessary feature for evidence to bear is that there be an uncertainty for it to bear upon). It is not as if the statement reports how this "experiment" turned out; whatever experiment there may have been appears to have been interrupted. The statement just isn't about the hollowness of the Earth.

Which is, after all, precisely my point. Paul's hallucination-or-vision-based statements about "the Lord" or the " 'son' of a 'god' ", are immaterial to the claim that such statements demonstrate that Paul was talking about a human. You may have missed it, but humans have human parents, and have never been demonstrated to be alive after they have died, nor, in any real sense, do humans work miracles, or "save souls".

Paul's statements about the contents of his hallucinations or visions are proof of nothing more than things that Paul believed. They have no probative value as far as things that actually exist.

The statement does seem to have some potential relevance to who may have shot the quoted speaker. If I were a historian, then it may be interesting that somebody thought that Billy Willis was the shooter, or thought the victim did. The report might easily influence my opinion on the question, if the question itself were interesting. Why not?

...because, taken as a statement against interest, and a "deathbed utterance", it is all admissible--but impeachable. Gee, I wish I had said that before...

 

[eight bits]

Belz

Some of us are simply pointing out that the HJ certainty expressed by Stone and Piggy is unwarranted.

So did I.

... you redefine every sort of evidence as "hearsay" to strengthen your case and avoid having to admit that you were in error.

I have used the same definition of hearsay throughout our entire discussion.This sweeping generalization of yours,

Yes, by its nature, hearsay is weaker than other forms of evidence.

is untenable. It fails as a description of what happens in the courtroom, where business records like credit card receipts and billing records are hearsay which is rotuinely admitted into evidence every day, often to impeach, effectively, other kinds of admitted evidence. It also fails as a prescription for the practice of ancient history, where little about any text can be inferred without some reliance on hearsay, not even to see that what a text asserts is untruthful.

You can draw conclusions from near-absent evidence if you want. I'm quite happy with admitting that I don't know.

Do you imagine that anybody thinks you could deny that you don't know, Belz?

I both draw conclusions and assert that I do not know. So do many people, including you at one point. Addressing Brainache,

But to answer your question, I would like some contemporary account of his life, which would switch me from a 60-70% guy to a 80-90% one.

I'm 60-40 in favor of an HJwC. The 40 means "I don't know." That's not an "admission." There's no earthly reason why you or I or any living person could be expected to know.

Slowvehicle

IIRC, it was you who started the "hearsay" derail. "hearsay" is a courtroom concept.

You'll have to take that "courtroom concept" idea up with max; he's found attestation of usage in a general-purpose dictionary. If you think I have derailed the thread, then take it up with a moderator.

Which is, after all, precisely my point. ...

People talk about ghosts visiting them, ancestors who influence current events, and other dead people as if they were present. Pliny the Younger wrote a realistic ghost story at about the time the Gospels were written. There's nothing exceptional about Paul talking about Jesus' ghost or pneuma embodiment. It's therefore perfectly reasonable to look at all that Paul said about it, to determine whether Paul thought Jesus ever lived, what Paul thinks Jesus may have said and done, whom Paul thinks Jesus may have associated with, etc.

Very little evidence about any uncertainty is of the dead mouse on the kitchen floor variety, where the previously uncertain or unsuspected is, in one stroke, revealed to be undeniably true. The impact of typicsl evidence is incremental, and often felt more in its motivation of directions for research than in its motivation of the discoverer to run naked through the streets shouting Eureka. Pound for pound, Paul's texts make their reasonable contribution, but only as much as typical evidence typically does. The uncertainty remains.

 

[Slowvehicle]

<snip for focus>

You'll have to take that "courtroom concept" idea up with max; he's found attestation of usage in a general-purpose dictionary. If you think I have derailed the thread, then take it up with a moderator.

Thank you--if only I had been able to read this in the MA!

People talk about ghosts visiting them, ancestors who influence current events, and other dead people as if they were present. Pliny the Younger wrote a realistic ghost story at about the time the Gospels were written. There's nothing exceptional about Paul talking about Jesus' ghost or pneuma embodiment. It's therefore perfectly reasonable to look at all that Paul said about it, to determine whether Paul thought Jesus ever lived, what Paul thinks Jesus may have said and done, whom Paul thinks Jesus may have associated with, etc.

As long as, and only to the extent that, the suite of things attributed to writing attributed to Paul are offered as indications of what Paul thought. Instead, we get offered the claim that "Paul talks about Jesus, therefore Jesus was real!" To wit:

Very little evidence about any uncertainty is of the dead mouse on the kitchen floor variety, where the previously uncertain or unsuspected is, in one stroke, revealed to be undeniably true. The impact of typicsl evidence is incremental, and often felt more in its motivation of directions for research than in its motivation of the discoverer to run naked through the streets shouting Eureka. Pound for pound, Paul's texts make their reasonable contribution, but only as much as typical evidence typically does. The uncertainty remains.

Instead, the most that can be said is that Paul is said to have said certain things about Jesus, things he learned in a hallucination or vision (and things that caused some conflicts with people who were said to have actually met Jesus). Those things are, at best, weak evidence for things Paul believed; not evidence for things that were actually true.

 

[Belz...]

This sweeping generalization of yours,


is untenable.

No, I and others have demonstrated that it is quite true. Someone hearing a fact from second hand is the weakest form of evidence. It is, pretty much by definition, therefore, more unreliable than other forms of evidence.

 

[eight bits]

Slowvehicle

Instead, the most that can be said is that Paul is said to have said certain things about Jesus, things he learned in a hallucination or vision

This seems to be a recurring problem. Paul is vague about the sources of his information and the weight he gives various channels, but Paul does not say that everything he knows about Jesus comes from extraordinary experience. Nor is that a reasonable conclusion from autobiographical material he includes.

I understand why Piggy tries to pin this rap on Paul; damned if I can understand why a counterapologist goes along with it, or lets a Christian or Mulsim apologist get away with it.

Belz

No, I and others have demonstrated that it is quite true.

Good for you. Martha & George really happened,. George lied. He was outed by hearsay, busimess records. Demonstrate otherwise to your heart's content. I was there.

 

[Slowvehicle]

This seems to be a recurring problem. Paul is vague about the sources of his information and the weight he gives various channels, but Paul does not say that everything he knows about Jesus comes from extraordinary experience. Nor is that a reasonable conclusion from autobiographical material he includes.

I understand why Piggy tries to pin this rap on Paul; damned if I can understand why a counterapologist goes along with it, or lets a Christian or Mulsim apologist get away with it.

Please: Feel free to list all of the information said to be what Paul is said to have said about Jesus that comes from observing Jesus in person, while Jesus was alive.

No, not stuff that other people are said to have said to him, but things Paul is said to have said that are said to result from contemporaneous interaction with a human Jesus...

ETA: "Business records", particularly routinely kept and notorious records, are not "hearsay".

 

[Stone]

Interesting follow-up and discussion here on Richard Carrier's new article on the James/Ananus episode in ANTIQS. 20: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2946

Carrier has suggested in his new article that the only James referenced in this passage is a brother of a "Jesus son of Damneus". The problem with that is that this "Jesus son of Damneus" ends up being perfectly friendly with Ananus -- after the latter supposedly went after the life of "Jesus son of Damneus"'s own brother! As Bernard Muller points out in the above-referenced discussion:

"Notice that Jesus son of Damneus had joined him towards the end. Rather odd if Ananus arranged for his brother to be executed!"

Yes, rather odd indeed. The James whom Ananus prosecuted cannot, then, have been a relative of "Jesus son of Damneus" after all. So if this persecuted James was not a brother of this "Jesus son of Damneus", who was he really? Could Jesus son of Damneus really be so forgiving if the James whom Ananus had stoned was his own brother?

Carrier's article is important, because it's the first peer-vetted article of this kind in a professional journal. If "Jesus son of Damneus" later joined up with Ananus, though, Carrier isn't off to a very propitious start.

Stone

 

[Belz...]

Good for you. Martha & George really happened,. George lied. He was outed by hearsay, busimess records. Demonstrate otherwise to your heart's content. I was there.

The only thing you've managed to demonstrate is that you have no clue what hearsay is.

Either that, or you are deliberately twisting the definition to suit your purposes.

 

[eight bits]

Slowvehicle

ETA: "Business records", particularly routinely kept and notorious records, are not "hearsay".

They are in the United States.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/business_records_exception

Please: Feel free to list all of the information said to be what Paul is said to have said about Jesus that comes from observing Jesus in person, while Jesus was alive.

The claim is yours,

the most that can be said is that Paul is said to have said certain things about Jesus, things he learned in a hallucination or vision

I disagree with your description, and have said so. Doubting your statement does not shift your burden about the most that can be said, etc.

Here's a hint of one part of what you need to show. At Galatians 1: 18, Paul reportedly says that three years after his coversion, and several years before Paul is writing the letter, Paul conferred with Cephas for two weeks. Show, then, that the subject of Jesus' biography didn't come up at any time during the meeting.

How much could Cephas have said in two weeks? By comparison, you might estimate how long it would take to recite the entire Gospel of Mark, which is about 11,000 words long and is traditionally associated with Paul's conferee. About 2 hours; the text has in fact been staged as a one-man show. Not two weeks, but two hours suffice to say what anybody thinks Peter-Cephas might ever have had to say about Jesus' life. Maybe they talked about football.

After you're done with that meeting, we'll talk about Paul's reported statement that he had hostile contact with churches in Christ for an unspecified interval before his conversion. Let's use 1 Corinthians this time, 15: 9 for one instance. I await your showing that no information about Jesus' alleged biography made its way to Paul then.

After that, we can discuss that Paul is reported to complain of his ongoing disagreement with competing preachers. Philippians 1: 15-18, is a very sporting example of its kind. You need only show that these disputes do not at all comcern Jesus' biography, or that they do, but Paul doesn't know what these other teachers have to say about Jesus, he just disagrees with them anyway.

That will keep us busy for a while. And impossible though it supposedly is, I have just said more than Paul is said to have said certain things about Jesus, things he learned in a hallucination or vision. The received text provides no support for such an hypothesis being a complete description of Paul's sources. It's just another thing that apologists made up, hoping that counters will take the bait instead of reading the book.


Belz

Perhaps you'd care to define hearsay as you have used the term. In the meantime, I've been discussing unsworn statements made outside of court, and have said so.

If that's what you meant by hearsay, then your generalization about it was factually false, and I presented a counterexample. If you meant something else, then while awaiting your preferred definition, it is, just as you have observed, impossible for anybody except you to have a clue what you're on about.

You and I do seem to be in inescapable agreement, however, that as some educated native speakers of English use the term every day, hearsay can easily be competitive with other kinds of evidence as a guide to uncertain truth. Which is fortunate, because all ancient texts except what may be carved in stone reach us as anonymous scribal hearsay, hearsay in the sense which I have used the term. Other posters have spoken critically about these texts for that reason, sometimes using other words for their hearsay nature.

We are in all too apparent agreement about how the term applies to the only on-topic evidence we actually have. There is almost nothing else to discuss about the topic, no other sources for a possible historical Jesus, or for framing an answer to what sort of person would count.

 

[maximara]

Interesting follow-up and discussion here on Richard Carrier's new article on the James/Ananus episode in ANTIQS. 20: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2946

Carrier has suggested in his new article that the only James referenced in this passage is a brother of a "Jesus son of Damneus". The problem with that is that this "Jesus son of Damneus" ends up being perfectly friendly with Ananus -- after the latter supposedly went after the life of "Jesus son of Damneus"'s own brother! As Bernard Muller points out in the above-referenced discussion:

"Notice that Jesus son of Damneus had joined him towards the end. Rather odd if Ananus arranged for his brother to be executed!"

Yes, rather odd indeed. The James whom Ananus prosecuted cannot, then, have been a relative of "Jesus son of Damneus" after all. So if this persecuted James was not a brother of this "Jesus son of Damneus", who was he really? Could Jesus son of Damneus really be so forgiving if the James whom Ananus had stoned was his own brother?

Carrier's article is important, because it's the first peer-vetted article of this kind in a professional journal. If "Jesus son of Damneus" later joined up with Ananus, though, Carrier isn't off to a very propitious start.

Carrier's reply answer all the points to which Bernard Muller relies with a regurgitation of the points Carrier made with NO counter arguments which results in Carrier's "All fallacious arguments. You’re done." comment.

Uh where in chapter 9 does it even give a hint of "Jesus son of Damneus" later "joining up with Ananus"?

Josephus is online and I looked at Chapter 9 and Jesus son of Damneus is mentioned twice: in the James passage and in the following-

"And now Jesus, the son of Gamaliel, became the successor of Jesus, the son of Damneus, in the high priesthood, which the king had taken from the other; on which account a sedition arose between the high priests, with regard to one another; for they got together bodies of the boldest sort of the people, and frequently came, from reproaches, to throwing of stones at each other."

Johan Rönnblom provides a logical counter arguments to Bernard Muller's other arguments. Nothing here.

 

[pakeha]

Interesting follow-up and discussion here on Richard Carrier's new article on the James/Ananus episode in ANTIQS. 20: http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/2946
...

Thanks for the link!

 

[maximara]

Slowvehicle

They are in the United States.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/business_records_exception

Eight, do you even read the stuff at the end of links?

Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 803

"The following are not excluded by the rule against hearsay, regardless of whether the declarant is available as a witness:

...

(6) Records of a Regularly Conducted Activity. A record of an act, event, condition, opinion, or diagnosis if:

(A) the record was made at or near the time by — or from information transmitted by — someone with knowledge;

(B) the record was kept in the course of a regularly conducted activity of a business, organization, occupation, or calling, whether or not for profit;

(C) making the record was a regular practice of that activity;

(D) all these conditions are shown by the testimony of the custodian or another qualified witness, or by a certification that complies with Rule 902(11) or (12) or with a statute permitting certification; and (E) neither the source of information nor the method or circumstances of preparation indicate a lack of trustworthiness.

Please note points D and E which brings us back to the Oxford dictionary definition of Hearsay: Information received from other people that cannot be adequately substantiated; rumor. (Oxford dictionary definition)

Face it this dog not only can't hunt but is dead. Your position is nonsense LET IT DROP

 

[Belz...]

Perhaps you'd care to define hearsay as you have used the term. In the meantime, I've been discussing unsworn statements made outside of court, and have said so.

Ah, well since we're making up definitions, I will be henceforth defining "cow" as "an article of furniture consisting of a flat, slablike top supported on one or more legs or other supports, and specifically used for serving food to those seated at it." There. That should make things easier when I say that I took the cows out for milking. And by milking, I mean "tea".

Seriously, though, why would you use your own custom definition of a word ? I mean, haven't we said enough times on this forum that this is a bad idea ?

Hearsay
noun
1. unverified, unofficial information gained or acquired from another and not part of one's direct knowledge: I pay no attention to hearsay.
2. an item of idle or unverified information or gossip; rumor: a malicious hearsay.

Hotel records are not hearsay by any known definition of the word except yours.

 

[eight bits]

max

The items you list are hearsay, unsworn statements made outside of court.

They are sometimes admissible in court.

Conclude: Some hearsay is admissible as evidence in American judicial proceedings.

That's my position. We seem to be in agreement.

Belz

Hotel records are not hearsay by any known definition of the word except yours.

Yes, the definition I share with the American legal profession, about 1 million resident and licensed as attorneys, along with uncounted paralegals and other white-collar support workers, and a considerable number of people who use the legal definittions for evidence-handling in their work, even when their professions are not usually associated with the practice of law or service to the courts (see below).

Business records were specifically identified as hearsay in the link I gave earlier, and which max was kind enough to quote for us. If your problem is whether hotel records in particular are business records, here is one specific tutorial with a mention on point, from Wisconsin,

http://www.wisbar.org/newspublicati...article.aspx?Volume=81&Issue=2&ArticleID=1641

The article is also a nice illustration of why non-lawyers are frequently trained in, and use professionally, the same evidentiary terminology as lawyers do.

Finally, under you own dictionary's description of usage, a hotel or motel billing record, absent the testimony of the person who made the record, comports with your descriptive entry #1.

 

[Belz...]

Bits, under your definition EVERYTHING is hearsay.