Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Ian


Yes.


What page are you on? You haven't drifted over to Acts by any chance? No image of Jesus for Paul there, either, but at least there's a voice. No voice in Paul, though.


Jesus isn't doing anything, it's the 500+ people who are doing something, seeing a ghost. Alternatively, if we accept Paul's premise, that Jesus rose from the dead in a pneuma body, then it isn't a miracle that he could use his body. It's all the same miracle. The one I mentioned.

The question I was anwering was


To which you contribute, cutting to the chase


Good answer. The only "miracle" of Jesus that Paul discusses is Jesus' resurrection. After he died. Jesus is the man who died. You and I should be in agreement that the answer to pakeha's question is yes. The dead guy who didn't do anything interesting to Paul except get killed is easily distinguishd from a ghost who interests Paul a lot.


No, Paul specifically says he doesn't know whether it was physical or not. If it wasn't physical, it's just an OBE. The web's teeming with OBE reports. No miracle. Just get a lousy night's sleep and there's a fair chance that you can do it, too.


Paul said he got his "gospel" from no man, and his "gospel" appears to be Galatians 2: 15 ff - which has no information about Jesus' life. "Gospels" in the sense of books about Jesus' life don't exist when Paul was writing. Paul's Gospel is Paul's distinctive preaching, not any kind of information about Jesus' earthly life.

Speaking of non-miracles, I have a sense of deja vu. I think you and I have already discussed this.

I don’t think anything here will be clarified by introducing obscure words like “pneuma”.

Nobody here believes that any the biblical miracles really happened. Most people here don’t believe it because modern science has shown that miracles are impossible.

The issue is whether or not the author of Paul’s letters (and similarly the gospels) intended his readers to believe that miraculous events had occurred.

Below is what Paul’s letters actually say (apparently) about these events.

Take a look at the first highlighted section from Corinthians. What Paul says there is that, Christ (ie Jesus Christ) died and was buried, but that he then rose from the dead three days later and appeared to various people … Paul is describing there what he presents as what we would now call an impossible miracle, isn’t he!

People do not rise up three days after being dead and buried, do they!

If anyone did that, it would be a miracle, wouldn’t it.

The point is - Paul is telling his readers that a miracle has occurred, isn’t he!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_of_Paul_the_Apostle

The conversion in Paul's letters

In his surviving letters, Paul's own description of his conversion experience is brief. In his First Epistle to the Corinthians,[9:1] [15:3-8] he describes having seen the Risen Christ:

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
— 1 Cor. 15:3–8, NIV (emphasis added)


Paul's Epistle to the Galatians also describes his conversion as a divine revelation, with God's Son appearing in Paul.

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.
— Galatians 1:11-16, NIV (emphasis added)



Now look at the second highlighted section from Galatians. Here Paul tells his readers that what he has preached about Jesus, he knows not because any man has told him such things, but specifically because these things were revealed to him by Jesus …. But Jesus was already dead by then. How does Jesus reveal anything to Paul, unless Paul thinks he is hearing the words of Jesus?

And by the way, notice also that Paul tells us in the above (highlight) that Jesus is actually the son of Yahweh himself. That too would be miraculous wouldn’t it!

The essential factor in any of this is not anyone’s speculation about what may have happened, if indeed anything ever happened, but what the author of Paul’s letters claims as his belief about what happened - he (the author, “Paul”) is clearly reporting events that he believes to be what we would now describe as impossible miracles.

“Paul” is describing events that we would now call "miracles".

 

[eight bits]

Ian

I don’t think anything here will be clarified by introducing obscure words like “pneuma”.

If you want to talk about Paul, then you're stuck with using his words. In this case, it's not as if there is some synonym. So far as anyone can tell, Paul is making up his concept right there as we watch him writing.

Nobody here believes that any the biblical miracles really happened.

Somebody got banned? JREF is no magnet for believers, but intrepid souls do seem to wander in now and then.

The issue is whether or not the author of Paul’s letters (and similarly the gospels) intended his readers to believe that miraculous events had occurred.

As I've had occasion to remark, neither Mark nor Matthew tell us why they were written. As to Luke-Acts and John, they do at least say, but their purposes aren't identical, and I don't see much similarity with Paul's purposes in writing letters.

Paul seems to be writing to people who already believe that miraculous events have occurred, and maybe still are occuring every week at the meetings. His remaining sales objective seems to be to keep them on board that particular miracles will occur. (None of the Gosepls, IMO, have that same rosy scenario about Jesus' return that Paul has.)

And I guess I'll point out one more time that in my reply to pakeha, I mentioned the resurrection. You have already agreed with me that Jesus had to have died for that to happen. Pakeha's question was whether the real man can be distinguished from the miracle man. My answer was yes, in Paul at least, the miracle man has already died. To me, that's quite a distinction from walking around on Earth.

Pakeha didn't ask, but I brought up distinguishing the Pauls, historical and miracle personality. I can think of nothing more routine than for a human being to interpret his experience according to his existing explanatory framework. People see lights and hear voices in the wind all the time. Religious people often find religious interpretations for that. Big deal.

Thank you also for confirming that Paul claims that only his "gospel" comes from an extraordinary source.

And um, you do realize that being set apart from one's mother's womb means being born, right? Yes, every baby born alive is a miracle of sorts, but I think this kind of miracle was well understood to be a natural phenomenon, even in the First Century.

 

[TimCallahan]

Originally Posted by TimCallahan
I don't know about any other non-biblical references specifically to Christ, other than Antiq. XX and Tacitus. Of the first, the reference to James as the brother of "Jesus, who was called the Christ," the clause, "who was called the Christ," might have been added, quite innocently, by a later scribe who "knew" this had to refer to Jesus Christ as opposed to any of the eight or more people named Jesus who appear in the writings of Josephus. We must remember that Jesus, i.e. Yeshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation," was a common name among first century Jews.

As to Tacitus his passage in the Annals of Imperial Rome referring tangentially to Christ says (p. 365 of the Penguin Classics edition):

To suppress this rumor [that he had deliberately set the fire that burned Rome], Nero fabricated scapegoats - and punished with every refinement the notoriously depraved Christians (as they were popularly called). Their originator, Christ, had been executed in Tiberius' reign by the governor of Judaea, Pontius Pilatus. But in spite of this temporary setback the deadly superstition had broken out afresh, not only in Judaea (where the mischief had started) but even in Rome. All degraded and shameful practices collect and flourish in the capitol.

So, there it is, a single sentence. This, to me, seems ample enough to point to some historical personage upon which Christianity was based. However, some have pointed out that Tacitus may only have been speaking of what the Christians themselves said of their origin and cite the fact that he got the office wrong - Pontius Pilate was procurator, not governor - as an indication that the information was second or third hand.

In any case, the Pauline form of Christianity may have had little to do with any historical Jesus. In fact, Paul explicitly tells us that his knowledge of Christ Jesus was from a personal revelation and that he did not even bother consulting with those who know Jesus while he was alive for any aspect of his gospel.

Once again, you totally ignore that since the very assertion that "they" say nothing about Jesus is already up for discussion, a question like "why didn't they say anything about Jesus?" unscrupulously papers over the fact that there is a controversy around such an assertion in the first place. You carefully describe the nature of the controversy here but don't address the unscrupulous way that the poster's question effectively pretends there is no controversy at all! :-(

How convenient. Just using this "discussion" as another opportunity to air myther propaganda rather than address the poster's pretense, in his provoking question, that there is no controversy such as you've outlined here at all. The point at issue here is not the precise nature of the controversy; it's whether or not there is any controversy at all. Plainly, there bloody well is. The poster's question pretends there isn't! :-(

I have a feeling I've made this distinction bloody clear by now. If anyone can still veer over into a discussion of the literal nature of the controversy itself after that, and still assert that he's somehow addressing my own point in doing that(!) when he's not, he is obviously either monumentally stupid or indulging in an exercise of blatant evasion and continual moving of the goal-posts.

Stone

For the life of me, I can't figure out what you're so upset about. As far as I know, the only non-biblical references to Jesus (or Christ) that were nearly contemporary to his existence are the two I referred to. Also, it's not my assertion that the reference by Josephus to the Jesus who was the brother of James as, "who was called the Christ," was added by a later editor. A number of people have asserted this, including G.A. Wells and Richard Carrier. Personally, I have no opinion on it, one way or the other.

As to the brief reference by Tacitus to the leader of the sect called Christians as Christ, and the statement that he was executed by Pontius Pilatus, seems, as I noted, a reasonable demonstration that he probably existed. However, in all fairness, I have included the objections of those who are critical of its validity, i.e. that Tacitus might have gotten second hand information given out by the Christians themselves. Personally, I find this unlikely.

It remains true that neither of these sources, assuming Josephus to be talking about the Jesus who was alleged to be the Christ, tell us much about Jesus except that his followers in Judea believed he was the Messiah and that the Christians saw him as their founder.

So far as I know, nobody posting on this thread has asserted that there's no controversy about the existence of Jesus. So, what is your problem?

 

[Stone]

For the life of me, I can't figure out what you're so upset about. As far as I know, the only non-biblical references to Jesus (or Christ) that were nearly contemporary to his existence are the two I referred to. Also, it's not my assertion that the reference by Josephus to the Jesus who was the brother of James as, "who was called the Christ," was added by a later editor. A number of people have asserted this, including G.A. Wells and Richard Carrier. Personally, I have no opinion on it, one way or the other.

As to the brief reference by Tacitus to the leader of the sect called Christians as Christ, and the statement that he was executed by Pontius Pilatus, seems, as I noted, a reasonable demonstration that he probably existed. However, in all fairness, I have included the objections of those who are critical of its validity, i.e. that Tacitus might have gotten second hand information given out by the Christians themselves. Personally, I find this unlikely.

It remains true that neither of these sources, assuming Josephus to be talking about the Jesus who was alleged to be the Christ, tell us much about Jesus except that his followers in Judea believed he was the Messiah and that the Christians saw him as their founder.

So far as I know, nobody posting on this thread has asserted that there's no controversy about the existence of Jesus. So, what is your problem?

At

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9500791&postcount=102

Pgwenthold falsely asserts that there's no controversy over Josephus's not referencing Jesus! Now, that is a fringe take on Josephus's blatant reference to Jesus in Antiqs XX. Pgwenthold not only adopts the fringe take on the blatant Antiqs XX reference as no reference at all! He twists that fringe take into a "fact" in his offensive question.

You first refer to things like "Josephus also mentions an Egyptian false prophet", etc., etc. Fine. No problem. But Pgwenthold then piles on with knee-jerk myther propaganda by asking "thoughtfully": "If all these other sources" [including Josephus] "are telling us about whacked messiahs, why didn't they say anything about Jesus?" ........... YUK!

Josephus bloody well does say something about Jesus, acc. to many scholars, thank you very bloody much! To pretend Josephus doesn't do just that -- as if it's now a "fact" that Josephus didn't reference Jesus rather than a fringe opinion that he didn't -- as Pgwenthold does in his question -- constitutes a sneaky underhanded slimeball insertion of a fringe take on Josephus in order to deliberately circulate a bad penny "assuming" no Jesus reference in Josephus at all. Wrong.

It's as if no debatable takes on the Antiqs XX passage exist at all, as if no controversy exists of any kind(!), as if only the myther fanatics have it right! That's a laugh.

It's one thing to maintain a fringe opinion. It's quite another to maintain no other opinion exists! It's one thing to argue the merits of one particular claim in a heated controversy. It's quite another to act as if no controversy exists! -- And on top of that, to also turn one fringe opinion in that controversy into a "fact".

This is why the sneaky tactics in Pgwenthold's question are beneath contempt.

Stone

 

[tsig]

At

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9500791&postcount=102

Pgwenthold falsely asserts that there's no controversy over Josephus's not referencing Jesus! Now, that is a fringe take on Josephus's blatant reference to Jesus in Antiqs XX. Pgwenthold not only adopts the fringe take on the blatant Antiqs XX reference as no reference at all! He twists that fringe take into a "fact" in his offensive question.

You first refer to things like "Josephus also mentions an Egyptian false prophet", etc., etc. Fine. No problem. But Pgwenthold then piles on with knee-jerk myther propaganda by asking "thoughtfully": "If all these other sources" [including Josephus] "are telling us about whacked messiahs, why didn't they say anything about Jesus?" ........... YUK!

Josephus bloody well does say something about Jesus, acc. to many scholars, thank you very bloody much! To pretend Josephus doesn't do just that -- as if it's now a "fact" that Josephus didn't reference Jesus rather than a fringe opinion that he didn't -- as Pgwenthold does in his question -- constitutes a sneaky underhanded slimeball insertion of a fringe take on Josephus in order to deliberately circulate a bad penny "assuming" no Jesus reference in Josephus at all. Wrong.

It's as if no debatable takes on the Antiqs XX passage exist at all, as if no controversy exists of any kind(!), as if only the myther fanatics have it right! That's a laugh.

It's one thing to maintain a fringe opinion. It's quite another to maintain no other opinion exists! It's one thing to argue the merits of one particular claim in a heated controversy. It's quite another to act as if no controversy exists! -- And on top of that, to also turn one fringe opinion in that controversy into a "fact".

This is why the sneaky tactics in Pgwenthold's question are beneath contempt.

Stone

You seem to be slaying dragons that only you can see.

 

[HansMustermann]

Err, Stone? Asserting something as fact without actually presenting the evidence, doesn't make it fact.

Also, arguments from authority still aren't worth jack unless that authority has shown the evidence to support their opinion. We may skip that step for disciplines which have a tradition that others actively examine the evidence and try to falsify the theory, i.e., in science, because we trust that others already did demand strict evidence, examined that evidence, and did try to falsify the theory with their own evidence. But bible studies has NO such tradition of demanding evidence, nor of falsifying anything with evidence. Hence it matters just as little how many bible studies professors say X, as it does how many homeopathy professors say Y, or how many acupuncture professors say Z.

Sure, they may still be right, but that hinges on showing the evidence that actually makes that opinion unassailable, not just repeating again and again like a brain-dead parrot that one can't disagree with a professor. Guess what? In a discipline where there is no internal request for strict evidence, any position, academic or otherwise, isn't worth squat by default. You CAN jolly well ask for evidence from a dowsing or homeopathy professor, and you can do the same for bible studies.

Yes, I get it that some people can't do more than repeat some nonsense and insist that all the support they need is quoting who said it. It sure is an easy path. Doesn't require more higher intellect functions than just enough memory to know what to google for, and one can still pretend they're smart while not being able to have ANY own argument and just repeating what other people said.

But guess what? That's not the same as actually having a logically sound argument, and it's not a shortcut to just doing the bulverisms instead. Being abusive doesn't change the fact that you never presented enough evidence to warrant that kind of conceit.

 

[HansMustermann]

As for the Testimonium Flavianum, yes, very few other people than BS apologists think it is actually a mention of Jesus. I mean, let me just copy and elaborate what I said before on the topic, and why Josephus wouldn't write that.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.​

There are serious problems even in that it is in the wrong place, and the next paragraph comes out wrong after this, but flows more naturally after the previous one. But let's take out the things that Josephus wouldn't have said:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man;(1) for he was a doer of wonderful works(2), a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. (3) He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles.(4) He was Christ.(5) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us (6), had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; (7) as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. (8) And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day. (9)​

1) A Jew would not gush over Jesus like a lame fanboy and wonder if it's even lawful to call him a man. Even most Christians wouldn't make Jesus fully divine, so, yes, he was a man even for most early Christians. For a Jew he couldn't be anything else than just a man like any other. The notion of wondering whether it even be lawful to call a Joe Random (which is what Jesus was to an orthodox Jew) a man, would be pure nonsense.

2) Josephus generally isn't into miracles, and again, if he thought that a messiah was actually doing miracles, he'd be following that messiah. But he didn't. He thought Vespasian was the messiah, so there's no reason to believe he'd endorse another messiah pretender as the one actually performing miracles.

Also the word used here, "poietes", is never used by Josephus anywhere else to mean "doer". For Josephus it means "poet" all over the place. But you know who does use it to mean "doer"? Yep, Eusebius. But anyway, we can be pretty sure that the "doer" part wasn't written by Josephus.

3) Nor would someone who didn't follow Jesus gush over how great are those who did. Especially not Josephus, who actually thinks that those who didn't think Vespasian was the real messiah, were deceived. There is no reason he'd include an "oh, except for those who followed THAT messiah, those are awesome" clause.

But most damning is the "accept truth with pleasure" part: someone who did not consider Jesus to be the messiah, would not consider his messianic claims to be the "truth", nor think of their followers as "accepting the truth." And again, on the contrary, when Josephus talks about people interpreting the messianic prophecies as meaning anything else than Vespasian being the messiah, he says they're deceived, not that they're "accepting the truth with pleasure."

4) It's both wrong -- as basically even the Church doesn't say that Jesus drew over any Gentiles himself: that was Paul -- and uses the wrong word Gentiles, which Josephus doesn't use anywhere else. It wouldn't even make sense to use it when writing for a Roman audience, so he uses Greeks or Syrians or such instead when he means other people than Jews.

5) Josephus wouldn't just say he was the messiah and still not convert. The notion that Jews knew Jesus was the messiah, but they just didn't convert anyway, is a later Christian rationalization. In reality the Jews who didn't convert, which would include Josephus, were just not convinced that Jesus was a messiah at all.

6) Josephus never does this kind of "we Jews are to blame." If someone had someone else executed, he just says who and whom. In fact his whole purpose in writing his books is to show that the Jews are people like any other in the Roman empire, not some mass of backwards illogical twits. When the Jews do something wrong, he tells you who provoked them or who deceived them, and it comes across as a normal reaction of normal people. He does not just do a collective "oh, we Jews are to blame."

7) Again, if Josephus thought someone could just rise from the dead, he'd think that guy IS the messiah and the messianic age had begun. That WAS the Pharisee belief, as far as we know. The whole point is that the Jews never thought that the resurrection actually happened.

8) The only prophecies of this kind Jews were interested in at the time were of the messiah, especially if he'd think there were tens of thousands of such references to Jesus. But, again, not only Josephus didn't convert, but he was trying to set someone else up as the messiah, and thought that the valid prophecies applied to that one.

9) Calling it a tribe is the wrong word altogether for a Jew. For Jews, tribe was a matter of genealogy, not something to apply to any group. Not to mention that Christianity wouldn't be anywhere near tribe sized at that point.

Now even trying to cherrypick something still true in a paragraph THAT clearly full of bogus stuff the author wouldn't have written, would be daft in its own right, but let's look at what's actually left afterwards:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, for he was a teacher. And when Pilate had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him.​

That's it. For a guy who supposedly was called "THE Messiah", Josephus fails to mention what he taught, why was he crucified, what he did, or anything. In fact, Josephus wouldn't even have any reason to write that.

And it still doesn't read like Josephus. Everywhere else Josephus does say what a guy did or said, and how it played in the historical narrative he's building, while here we'd have a vague glossing over some guy without actually saying anything about him, nor having any obvious reason to mention him, because it has no importance and ties into nothing else.

I mean, look at the paragraph on John The Baptist for example, for how an actual paragraph by Josephus reads. It tells you who that guy was, what the king feared, and why he was killed. Furthermore it ties in with the narrative at that point, and there is a reason for Josephus to mention that. Some people were blaming a failure of the king on his earlier execution of JTB.

And the same applies if you look at the other failed messiah wannabes that Josephus dismantles. He tells you what they made people do, that triggered their being killed, and how it happened, and so on. He doesn't just mention that a guy existed and was killed, and that's it, no further details about either. There is no reason to do that.

It's completely different from the useless and pointless crap that remains when you 'un-interpolate' the Testimonium Flavianum.

So probably Josephus didn't write even that.

And that is a problem with the BS peddlers (sorry, "bible studies professors") who try to peddle an "un-interpolated" version of the TF. Invariably they have to leave one or more such thing inside, and then do lame handwaving as to why would Josephus gush over some guy doing miracles after all.

 

[eight bits]

That's an interesting exercise, Hans, how much of the TF could have been a remark by Josephus. I don't see what's "at stake" here, since even if Josephus did write about Jesus, it could easily be like Tacitus explaining the beliefs of some sect, not necessarily embracing their truth, but simply declining to labor something that is peripheral to the main story, however important it might be to Christians.

For example, in the less controversial passage about John the Baptist (Antiquites 18: 5, 2), does Jospehus actually know that

- John was a good man?
- that baptism was not for remission of sins?
- that baptism was for the purification of the body?
- that Herod experienced fear of John?

Clearly, if this passage is genuine, then Josephus is capable of wriitng beyond his personal knowledge, including conclusory language about a person's character, interior mental states of other people, and the particulars of a cult which Josephus never witnessed.

So, let's try the TF again (18:3, 3). I don't propose that this is genuine, either. I think the whole paragraph is an interpolation (although the material around the John the Baptist digression flows well without it, too - that's what digression means).

At this time there was Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed wonderful works, and a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure. He stirred up both many Jews and many Greeks. He was the Christ. And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, since he was accused by the leading men among us, those who had loved him from the first did not desist, for he appeared to them on the third day, having life again, as the prophets of God had foretold these and countless other marvelous things about him. And until now the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not extinct.

Being a performer of wonders is not a supernatural claim. That his students were "people who received the truth with pleasure" doesn't commit the writer to the truth of what Jesus taught. I struck "He was the Christ," but (echoes of John), maybe it said "He was called the Christ," which would fit nicely with explaining the name of the "tribe." I am not concerned with the use of "tribe," if so, then I read it ais a snide slap that in Josephus' time, Christianity had become a thoroughly Gentile movement.

Of course, evidence is what is observed, not what can be made up to replace what is observed. The test tube is not just dirty, it is filthy. Whatever controversy other posters see here, I cannot imagine any controversy about that.

 

[HansMustermann]

Being a doer is still not written by Josephus, because it uses the wrong word for Josephus

And again, I'm serious about the problems with uses of 'tribes' and such. A tribe for Jews was not what we call a tribe, but more akin to a Roman 'gens'. It was a genealogical claim. Christians would rationalize some symbolic descent from Abraham and whatnot (see Paul's thinking that God's promise to Abraham was about his congregation), but there is no indication that a Jew would see that as a valid genealogy claim. It would be like, dunno, a Roman saying that the stoics or neo-platonists were a gens. It would make no sense.

At any rate, let's look at what Josephus says about JTB in Antiquities XVIII

Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him.​

You'll notice for a start that Josephus

A) doesn't actually gush about JTB or his followers. He doesn't say that his teachings were truth, nor that he performed any miracles while alive, nor anything even similar to the TF endorsement of Jesus. Josephus just reports what he taught, and what some people thought or supposed. (E.g., "supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness.")

Just about the only personal opinion of Josephus there is that JTB was a good man. And indeed he was; he hadn't done anything wrong, and telling people to be pious and virtuous was no crime.

But even so, Josephus doesn't gush over how those following him were "accepting the truth with pleasure" or anything. Nor indeed anything that would even imply that JTB's beliefs were the truth. Josephus reports, doesn't break into a commercial for JTB.

B) actually tells you what happened there. He doesn't just gloss through JTB being executed, as he supposedly does in the TF for Jesus. He tells you exactly who had a problem with him, and what that problem was.

He also actually tells you what he taught. He doesn't just go into praising those who listened, while skipping the what or why.

That's one of my problems with the TF. The Josephus who usually does just that telling you what, and why, and how, supposedly turns into someone writing a cryptic advertisement for Jesus that skips exactly those things. Josephus who is writing a book on history, in the TF is supposedly leaving out exactly the important things to mention about a historical figure, if you bother mentioning him at all.

 

[pakeha]

That's curious: Blatant shameless anti-intellectualism doesn't seem to have killed know-nothing mytherism.

Stone

And this is why you resurrected this thread?
To provide a showcase for how you walk the talk?

...Paul tells no miracle stories except the resurrection, and his story about that it is that it's about to happen to everybody who's having his letter read to them, mostly one better than Jesus - never die at all. Top that. OK, I will: you'll be able to fly, too. ..

Except the resurrection.
How seriously are we supposed to take someone who's selling the promise of a physical resurrection?

Oh, come on. We are only discussing a particular human here and have been for most of the threads on this topic throughout this board -- and that's what the most modern scholars address as well. Nine times out of ten, any references here to the "Redeemer of Mankind" have been made with deliberately snarky intent only, or as an underhanded attempt to distort what someone else is saying about the human being.

Possibly true about the nine out of ten.
However, it's as cute an example of 'poisoning the well' as I've seen here, because my question is quite serious.

As far as I can see, our sources confirming the presence of the human being known as Jesus emphasise the resurrection, or, if you prefer, the belief in the resurrection. The Redeemer of Mankind is a result of such a belief, correct me if I'm wrong.

I can respect your devotion to Jesus the social reformer, Stone.
But does your devotion really depend on those saying which are so dear to your heart being attributed to a recognisable human?

...Plenty of those sayings have impacted necessary institutions of today, such as the Red Cross ("Love your enemies" anyone?). So if one cares at all about knowing where the most essential tenets upholding modern civilization originate, then one cares about knowing when those tenets originate and from whom. And if one doesn't even care to know just why modern civilization yields an existence that is slightly less nasty, brutish and short today than it was centuries ago, than I guess it doesn't even matter that Jefferson introduced "pursuit of happiness"! :-(

Plainly, all of this matters. We stand on the shoulders of ethics giants going back thousands of years who have expanded human community and made it incrementally more inclusive era by era. Now, there's no way one can automatically make this overriding fact in human history of paramount importance to every individual today. But it's still deplorable for anyone not to view it that way, not to care just why most people can go to bed at night slightly more secure tonight than they would have been centuries ago. Ethics giants made staggering sacrifices for whatever social security we may have today -- and it's O.K. that we not even care?! ...

Not care about what?
Whether they were regular guys or myths?
Does that distinction affect those teachings?
Really?
Why do you think so?

Anyway.
Your erroneous attribution of the Red Cross to Jesus Ethics ^tm has already been pointed out by ddt, as was that rather silly reference to the Serapion text.

...And Serapios? I assume you mean Mara Bar-Serapion, the son of Serapios? Let's see what he wrote:

What kind of reference to Jesus is this? Yeah, if you're a Christian and you read this with Christian rose-tinted glasses, you might want to see Jesus in this reference to a "Jewish king". But why didn't he just write Yeshua ben Yusuf then? There have been plenty of real Jewish kings around, so why try to read this as a reference to someone who never was a king to begin with?

Let's do some math on it: Socrates died in 399BC, Pythagoras in 495BC, so linear extrapolation puts this Jewish king around 600BC. Let's say: Josiah, who died in 609BC. He was a reformer - many think Deuteronomy was written during his reign - he was violently killed, and within 22 years of his death, Jerusalem had been captured twice by the Babylonians. Fits the bill.

You might object that Josiah was not murdered by a Jewish mob, but by the Egyptian pharaoh, Necho II. Then I say: (a) the text above technically does not say the Jews themselves murdered Josiah; and (b) Mara Bar-Sarapion is being very liberal with the truth anyway. The stories about Socrates and Pythagoras don't line up either:
(1) There was no famine and pestilence in Athens at the time of Socrates' execution. The famine and pestilence was there towards the end of the Peloponnesian war, due to the siege by Sparta, and led to the surrender of Athens in 404BC, and that in turn led to the trial of Socrates.
(2) Pythagoras was born and raised in Samos, but died in Croton in Magna Graeca (southern Italy), so I'm not even going to bother with the "buried in sand".

So, really, taking this serious as a source referencing Jesus is laughable.


Huh? Henry Dunant was Swiss, and he got the idea for the Red Cross when witnessing a battle between French and Austrians (Solferino). His concept of the Red Cross was to have a neutral force caring for the wounded. Where do you see "enemies" come into play here?


Who definitely was not a Christian, at most a deist. I fondly remember Dutch Cardinal Simonis explain on TV why allegedly Islam can't play nice with liberal western democracy but Christianity can: we had the Enlightenment. Yep, it's thanks to guys like Voltaire, Rousseau, Jefferson, Franklin etc. that we have those values , otherwise Christianity would still be ruled by the likes of Calvin, Savonarola and Torquemada who'd happily burn every heretic at the stake. (of course, Simonis didn't say the latter but it's the obvious implication of his own words).

You've hit on one of the things that most puzzles me about Stone's passionate devotion to Jesus Ethics^tm.
He's obviously not a Christian, since he admits he doesn't believe in the resurrection.
Why prop up the figure of an historical Jesus with Serapion, of all people?
Why claim Jesus' life makes it possible to sleep better at night?
I think Stone could make a much better case the Enlightement being the reason "most people can go to bed at night slightly more secure tonight than they would have been centuries ago." than the Jesus Ethics^tm

.. The dead guy who didn't do anything interesting to Paul except get killed is easily distinguishd from a ghost who interests Paul a lot. ...

But which is the product he's selling?
A mundane dead guy with quite frankly inspiring sayings or just another ghost story?
Paul seems to get off more what he claims Jesus taught on divorce issues than 'Love thy Neighbor', correct me if I'm wrong.

No. Mind hiccup. Agapios, which is viewed by some as an earlier source for the T.F. than any extant ms. ...Stone

Come, come, Stone.
You know that was debunked as a source by ANTPogo just before you left off posting here earlier this year.

 

[IanS]

Ian


If you want to talk about Paul, then …
…
…etc
…

.

Your post (the rest of it below) seems to be saying nothing at all except agreeing that Paul is of course talking of Jesus in terms of what everyone would now call miracles.

What Paul’s letters say (apparently) is that Paul believed and preached that Jesus was the miraculous son of Yahweh.

There’s really not much more to say on that. But just for the sake of commenting on each of your sentences -

Ian

If you want to talk about Paul, then you're stuck with using his words. In this case, it's not as if there is some synonym. So far as anyone can tell, Paul is making up his concept right there as we watch him writing.


Why are you talking about Paul’s' words? Did you think Paul himself was posting here and that I'd quoted what Paul posted? Or do you think you are Paul?

I was talking about the words you choose to use, like "pneuma" and "pneuma body".


Somebody got banned? JREF is no magnet for believers, but intrepid souls do seem to wander in now and then.


What? Who got banned? Who said anything like that? … perhaps you have your threads mixed up here (you seem to think you are in some other thread entirely lol).


As I've had occasion to remark, neither Mark nor Matthew tell us why they were written. As to Luke-Acts and John, they do at least say, but their purposes aren't identical, and I don't see much similarity with Paul's purposes in writing letters.


What has that to do with the price of fish?


Paul seems to be writing to people who already believe that miraculous events have occurred, and maybe still are occuring every week at the meetings. His remaining sales objective seems to be to keep them on board that particular miracles will occur. (None of the Gosepls, IMO, have that same rosy scenario about Jesus' return that Paul has.)


This again is irrelevant. The point is (to repeat for the 3rd time), as explained in the previous post - Paul’s letters are describing what we would now call miracles. Paul is claiming that miracles occurred. That’s all.


And I guess I'll point out one more time that in my reply to pakeha, I mentioned the resurrection. You have already agreed with me that Jesus had to have died for that to happen.


Well it is not from you that the world learned how Jesus was said to have risen from the dead. The bible said that long before you ever existed. So it’s not a matter of anyone agreeing with you that Jesus was claimed to rise from the dead.


Pakeha's question was whether the real man can be distinguished from the miracle man. My answer was yes, in Paul at least, the miracle man has already died. To me, that's quite a distinction from walking around on Earth.


I don’t believe that I commented at all on anything Pakeha said. So I don't know you are telling me about that.


Pakeha didn't ask, but I brought up distinguishing the Pauls, historical and miracle personality. I can think of nothing more routine than for a human being to interpret his experience according to his existing explanatory framework. People see lights and hear voices in the wind all the time. Religious people often find religious interpretations for that. Big deal.


Difficult to fathom what you are saying (as always), but if you are saying that Paul and other people at that time believed that miracles often happened, then afaik that’s what all of us have frequently pointed out in all these threads.

So … Paul believed that miracles were happening. In particular, he believed that miracles were happening with Jesus rising from the dead and speaking revealing to him (to Paul) all the things which Paul later preached. He believed Jesus was the son of Yahweh in heaven. He believed all sorts of other named people had seen Jesus after Jesus was dead and buried. He believed that over 500 people all saw Jesus at once. Paul is claiming miracles … because those things, if they happened as Paul says, would be miracles.


Thank you also for confirming that Paul claims that only his "gospel" comes from an extraordinary source.


I’m not confirming that Paul obtained his beliefs about Jesus and the miracles from any “extraordinary source”. I don’t know where the author of “Paul” got his stories. All that I have done, as indeed others have done in these threads, is quote from Paul’s letters where those letters say that he got his Jesus information from the dead Jesus himself and from his belief in what he thought was written in OT scripture.



And um, you do realize that being set apart from one's mother's womb means being born, right? Yes, every baby born alive is a miracle of sorts, but I think this kind of miracle was well understood to be a natural phenomenon, even in the First Century.


Who said anything about anyone or anything being “set apart from ones’ mothers womb”? I did not say anything about any such words. Where did I make any comment on those words?

 

[eight bits]

pakeha

How seriously are we supposed to take someone who's selling the promise of a physical resurrection?

Indeed, but as a Pharisee, he had already believed in a physical resurrection. Pharisees generally were taken seriously, even by rivals.

Paul seems to get off more what he claims Jesus taught on divorce issues than 'Love thy Neighbor', correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't think you're wrong, but it's hard to reconstruct Paul's whole view of Jesus' teaching based on what came up in correspondence from which we have only a quirky selection of Paul's side, and nothing from the people he's conversing with. There are parts of Paul's general advice that seem to me to be possible interpretations of Jesus' (apparent) message of social tolerance. But Paul doesn't say the magic words about those things, "This is from the Lord, not me..."


Hans

Being a doer is still not written by Josephus, because it uses the wrong word for Josephus

I am aware of the argument, but am thoroughly unpersuaded by it. Apart from ideologically neutral fidelity-of-transmission issues, Joe is a lazy writer, but he did have sources, and it is entirely possible that one of those sources used the word. And, as I say about "tribe," snideness (or if you prefer, irony) can sometimes overcome even laziness.

You'll notice for a start that Josephus ...

I think you and I are in agreement that at least some of the TF is interpolated, and as I said, my personal top pick is that the whole thing was interpolated. Still, it's interesting to think about what might have been.

We do seem to differ about whether praising the students' taste commits the writer to agreeing with their teacher, or whether Jesus presiding at wonders (speaking of nuanced and unusual word choice) commits the writer to a supernatural origin for the unnamed wonders.

If the brevity bothers you, then maybe the original was longer. Perhaps:

At this time there was Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call a sharp man wise, one who performed wonderful works to beguile the credulous, and a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure, whom he sorely disappointed. He stirred up both many Jews and many Greeks. He was called the Christ...

In the JTB, I see the scope of the hedge (some people believe) pertaining only to the connection between Herod's misfortune and his bad treatment of John. The details of the cult are stated as facts grammatically. They are definitely not anything Josephus could have known personally, nor even have known that this was the contemporary opinion about the cult. It is his estimate based on his research, not ground fact.

And, finally

And indeed he was; he hadn't done anything wrong, and telling people to be pious and virtuous was no crime.

Indeed, nor is it a crime when Benny Hinn does those things. I never met John, something Josephus and I have in common. John had admirers; Joe wrote it up as him being deserving of admiration. That's conclusory and beyond Joe's knowledge, and any source's knowledge.

Ian

I don't actually see anything new there. Since you read my posts with the same care that you read Paul's letters, I think we can leave things where they are for the time being.

 

[pakeha]

pakeha


Indeed, but as a Pharisee, he had already believed in a physical resurrection. Pharisees generally were taken seriously, even by rivals. ...

Thanks for the heads up.
Off to learn more about Pharisees and Paul (all things to all men)'s claim to be one.

... maybe the original was longer. Perhaps:

At this time there was Jesus, a wise man, if it is lawful to call a sharp man wise, one who performed wonderful works to beguile the credulous, and a teacher of people who received the truth with pleasure, whom he sorely disappointed. He stirred up both many Jews and many Greeks. He was called the Christ...

Ouch.
Speculation, yes, but plausible.

 

[ddt]

No. Mind hiccup. Agapios, which is viewed by some as an earlier source for the T.F. than any extant ms.

Come, come, Stone.
You know that was debunked as a source by ANTPogo just before you left off posting here earlier this year.

Thank you, pakeha. You refer to this exchange, I presume?

What on Earth does that have to do with anything? I'm perfectly well aware that Jefferson's a deist. I was talking about ethics giants throughout history. They comprise every doctrine of the last 5,000 years! If some people are pathetically apathetic and bored with the who and the when of the great breakthroughs that have incrementally expanded cultural notions of human community, that's deplorable.

And what has that to do with the price of fish?

First of all, even if Jesus is among your purported "ethics giants", that has no bearing on the question whether he was a historical figure or not. We could as well proclaim that Candide was an "ethics giant" if we didn't know who thought him up.

Secondly, how can you blankly proclaim the person to be an "ethics giant" who
(1) cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season
(2) says he has come to sow dissent between father and son, mother and daughter, etc.
(3) tells me I should pluck out an eye whenever I see a girl walking by and think "wow, she's attractive".
Just to take some of the questionable teachings of Jesus. There are lots more, of course, which many will try to sweep under the rug when presenting their rose-tinted image of Jesus.

 

[ddt]

In the JTB, I see the scope of the hedge (some people believe) pertaining only to the connection between Herod's misfortune and his bad treatment of John.

Yes, that gives a direct link between the JTB paragraph and the preceding one. 8.5.1 ends with a resounding defeat of Herod Antipas against Aretas, and 8.5.2 tells that some Jews thought that this was divine retribution for Antipas' treatment of John the Baptist.

There is no such causal link whatsoever between the T.F. and the preceding or following paragraphs. The only link is that it happened during Pilate's reign, but no woe befell the Jews, in fact, they were in agreement with Pilate that Jesus should be crucified as per the T.F.

The details of the cult are stated as facts grammatically. They are definitely not anything Josephus could have known personally, nor even have known that this was the contemporary opinion about the cult. It is his estimate based on his research, not ground fact.

I don't understand why you keep repeating that Josephus was not witness. Isn't that the fate of about every historian, that he writes about things past, based on research and not on personal observation?

 

[calebprime]

I don't wish this post to be taken as debating anything, only as trying to clarify for myself why I'm interested in the historical Jesus, or the historical Marcus Aurelius, the historical Luthor, the historical Simone Weil, or the historical Martin Luthor King.

It's only with a realistic psychology and with an attempt at a warts-and-all portrait of these people (as well as many, many other people) that we can begin to understand what we can aspire to.

I'm anti-hagiography.

Reality first, fiction last. (Where fiction in that formulation means entertainment.) Well-written fiction can have real-seeming characters based on acute observation of real people.

Badly-written fiction and folklore has its uses I'm sure, but no moral lessons for me.

Instead of a church of John Coltrane* that idealizes him, better a close, technical listening to his music, and a bio that shows all his flaws. That's the way I can internalize his lessons.

Now, obviously, we will never have the kind of portrait of warts-and-all Jesus that I'd find valuable. What we have that might be useful to me is a bunch of wisdom sayings. If interpreted -- not with rose-colored glasses -- with a full appreciation of their paradoxes and contradictions and limitations, those wisdom sayings can be thought of in relation to other wisdom traditions. Do they offer anything different? Is there anything that goes beyond common sense? What good are radical-seeming sayings that go beyond common sense -- such as some of the more fiery sayings of Jesus?

What good is it, ever, to be radical? To be a trouble-maker?

*http://www.coltranechurch.org/

 

[pakeha]

Thank you, pakeha. You refer to this exchange, I presume?

The very exchange, ddt.

... What we have that might be useful to me is a bunch of wisdom sayings. If interpreted -- not with rose-colored glasses -- with a full appreciation of their paradoxes and contradictions and limitations, those wisdom sayings can be thought of in relation to other wisdom traditions. ...

,

That would place Jesus in goodly company, indeed, with Plato and Confucious, Marcus Aurelius and Solomon.

 

[eight bits]

caleb

What we have that might be useful to me is a bunch of wisdom sayings. If interpreted -- not with rose-colored glasses -- with a full appreciation of their paradoxes and contradictions and limitations, those wisdom sayings can be thought of in relation to other wisdom traditions. Do they offer anything different? Is there anything that goes beyond common sense? What good are radical-seeming sayings that go beyond common sense -- such as some of the more fiery sayings of Jesus?

That's the interest in Gospel of Thomas, a sayings gospel. The only nearly complete surviving version is a Coptic translation, crudely larded up with Gnostic stuff, later than the big-G Gospels. There is, however, some constituency for there being a "core Thomas" that might be competitive in age with the Gospels, and preserve an early Jesus wisdom tradition.

For some idea of what that core might be like, here is the Jesus Seminar annotated translation of the Coptic Thomas.

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/PDF/166/Judaism Christianity/166Thomas.pdf

Red is better than pink, which is better than blue, and black isn't Jesus at all (in the opinion of the Jesus Seminar, as aggregated under their voting system). Figure pink and red as an estimate of the core.



ddt

I don't understand why you keep repeating that Josephus was not witness. Isn't that the fate of about every historian, that he writes about things past, based on research and not on personal observation?

It's not a complaint, just an observation. If we knew that something like a reconstructed TF were the original, then we would be in the same place we are with Tacitus. Comparing parallel constructions in reconstructed TF's with more confidently original JTB helps illustrate the point. "Facts" like Pilate ordering a crucifixion are parallel with "facts" like remission of sins was taught as preceding baptism - the results of research. Indeed, just live every historian, such as Tacitus.

 

[Stone]

*bump*

 

[IanS]

Ian

Since you read my posts with the same care that you read Paul's letters, I think we can leave things where they are for the time being.

If you are comparing the value of your posts to the 2000 year old mistaken superstitious writing attributed to Paul, then it does not say much for the value of your posts.

The bottom line here is that Paul describes Jesus in miraculous terms. That was at a time when people readily believed miracle stories like that. But now in 2013, we should know better than to believe ancient superstition of that sort.

If any evidence exists for Jesus as a real person, then it certainly is not Paul’s belief in a miraculous heavenly son of Yahweh (deceased).