Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
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Let's not get carried away. We all know that the evidence for Evolution is about ten trillion times stronger than any evidence we have for Jesus. We all know that conclusions in Ancient History are never certain. Nowhere near the level of certainty there is for Evolution.
Just getting in here before the predictable "You can't compare Jesus to Evolution!" posts start.
eight bits
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The Norseman
Evidence, then, can be evaluated for its prospects to move that split one way or the other. Unfortunately, there is very rarely any new evidence of much direct weight, so perhaps everybody, regardless of prior opinion, is sorely out of practice revising their beliefs. Even a prominent exception, like Bart Ehrman, who had a "crisis of faith," especially about the non-historical (religious) aspects of the Jesus hypothesis, apparently hasn't made (or hasn't been able to make) a habit of exposing his basic historical beliefs about Jesus' existence to revision.
tsig
What is supposed to bring about consensus, except evidence? Copious fresh evidence is unavailable (as almost all here appear to agree, since they find so many different ways of saying it). Only rarely is an uncertainty resolved by picking up a dead mouse from the kitchen floor. More typical is a prolonged accumulation of evidence, no one piece of which "proves" anything, but taken as a whole, the body of little pieces persuades.
The only thing that's much accumulated in this case is impossible stories, some of them literally childish (Where do babies come from? Birds bring them.). OK, that being the case, you adopt the opinion that suits you, if any, and realize that what suits you is unlikely to suit everybody else. Disagreeing with you isn't proof of anything, either.
Fortunately, those aren't the only two a priori beliefs available. For example, there is "I accept both logical possibilities as serious possibilities, and lean 100p - 100(1 -p) favoring (or disfavoring or neutral toward) the existence of a historical Jesus who counts." Example: your obedient correspondent, who's 60-40 in favor.
Evidence, then, can be evaluated for its prospects to move that split one way or the other. Unfortunately, there is very rarely any new evidence of much direct weight, so perhaps everybody, regardless of prior opinion, is sorely out of practice revising their beliefs. Even a prominent exception, like Bart Ehrman, who had a "crisis of faith," especially about the non-historical (religious) aspects of the Jesus hypothesis, apparently hasn't made (or hasn't been able to make) a habit of exposing his basic historical beliefs about Jesus' existence to revision.
tsig
Nothing at all. What's so hard to understand that it is permissible to have an opinion about an uncertain question of fact? And if it is uncertain, and the thin body of evidence changes slowly if at all after 2000 years, then what's so hard to understand that in a population of comparably informed rational people, you would expect a diversity of opinions?
What is supposed to bring about consensus, except evidence? Copious fresh evidence is unavailable (as almost all here appear to agree, since they find so many different ways of saying it). Only rarely is an uncertainty resolved by picking up a dead mouse from the kitchen floor. More typical is a prolonged accumulation of evidence, no one piece of which "proves" anything, but taken as a whole, the body of little pieces persuades.
The only thing that's much accumulated in this case is impossible stories, some of them literally childish (Where do babies come from? Birds bring them.). OK, that being the case, you adopt the opinion that suits you, if any, and realize that what suits you is unlikely to suit everybody else. Disagreeing with you isn't proof of anything, either.
pakeha
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DOC's back!
Back to Josh, are we?
Here's that first evidence you cite
"There are over 5000 New Testament manuscripts in existence compared to 7 manuscripts for Plato and 20 for famous Roman Historian Tacitus"
DOC, do you remember why that cipher of 5000 regarding NT manuscripts isn't evidence for Jesus' existence?
Back to Josh, are we?
Here's that first evidence you cite
"There are over 5000 New Testament manuscripts in existence compared to 7 manuscripts for Plato and 20 for famous Roman Historian Tacitus"
DOC, do you remember why that cipher of 5000 regarding NT manuscripts isn't evidence for Jesus' existence?
Belz...
Fiend God
I think you left out a few words, there. Let me help you:
At least one author claimed that one of them went around letting people say he was Jesus' "brother", whatever he meant by that.
dafydd
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With the same old debunked nonsense.
If you think the only evidence is a couple of lines in some letters of Paul, you don't understand how the study of History works. Until you do, further discussion is pointless.
Cheers.
OK, so apart from the obvious non-evidence of Paul’s beliefs, you say there is other evidence which comes from expert bible scholars that we have no right to disagree with … so what is this other information that you say actually IS evidence of a living Jesus?
You are relying on the evidence supposedly produced by these bible scholars, so you must know what this overwhelming evidence of theirs is. So what is it? What is this evidence which you know from bible scholars which is so overwhelming as to make those bible scholars insist that their evidence shows Jesus “definitely” existed?
What is this other evidence? You must know (since you are relying on it), so what is it please.
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You mean the person named "James" in Paul's letter?
Who was it that "James" spoke to claiming to be the brother of "Jesus"?
Can you quote where in any of the biblical writing James makes that claim to anyone?
Because afaik in his own gospel, that same James makes no such claim of being the brother of Jesus.
And just to be clear and accurate here - in Paul's letter it does not say James told Paul that he was the family brother of Jesus the messianic preacher of Nazareth.
All that the letter says, is that in a Christian copy written around 200 years after the purported meeting, someone had written at the end of a sentence about James, the three words "the Lords brother". It does not describe James telling Paul anything about being the family brother of Jesus.
You have every right to disagree with them. They have every right to ignore you if your ideas don't pass peer review. It is very simple, I don't know why you have a problem with it. It's the same for anything in History.
Think you can change the Consensus? Go For It.
What do you want? A Grant?
Read a book. I can't reconstruct this stuff here. Maybe if you are lucky a historian might wander by and try, I wish him/her luck.
Whatever dude.
Publish or be damned as an internet know-it-all.
I am not talking here to your bible scholars. I am asking YOU right here on this public forum. And you very plainly in full sight of everyone here have no answer at all.
OK, well I’m sure everyone here can see for themselves what you just said there (I highlighted it) - you are admitting that you have absolutely no answer, such that you don’t even know yourself what your own evidence is supposed to be!
You don’t even know what you yourself are claiming as the evidence, far less what any scholars are claiming.
That’s the same worthless attempt at avoidance that I notice you have been using as a reply to everyone in the thread entitled History Denying Atheist Activists. Having no valid answer to people there, you also keep telling them not to post on JREF and to write to bible scholars instead.
Well that is no business of this forum, and it’s no business of yours, telling other posters in these threads to go elsewhere - we are asking YOU what you claim as the evidence of a living Jesus … and so far you have failed 100% to provide even the most microscopic spec of any evidence. In fact it appears that you don’t even know what real evidence is!
But the bottom line on your whole performance in this thread, as I now notice in that other thread too (Denying History) is summed up by the red statement above - you have absolutely no answer to the question of what you are claiming as evidence of Jesus. Absolutely nothing at all.
- what are you claiming to be the evidence that shows Jesus was a real living person?
- what are you claiming is shown by your bible scholars to be the evidence which “proves” Jesus was “definitely” a real living person?
It must be maddening for you. Sorry. But I'm not a Historian, I read the explanations, I don't make them.
It's not my job to convince you. I don't care if you are convinced. I am. And so are all of the Historians who looked at the question. Deal with it, as Maximara might say.
Believe that if it makes you happy. I can't stop you.
Whatever. Look it up. It's the same as the evidence that has convinced everybody else that has bothered to look. Why do you think I'm unique?
If you change that "Definitely" to a "most likely" you will be closer to what I and everybody else have been saying.
I could try laying out all of the evidence and the methods here, but I'd probably make a hash of it. You really are better off if you read something by a Professional.
I've read "A Brief History Of Time" as well, but I couldn't explain Hawking radiation or time dilation to you either.
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But the creationists ARE comparable to the mythers. They both have an undying hatred and bigotry against academia and specialists and would have been in the vanguard of those torching the Library of Alexandria. They are also not interested in data. They are only interested in brainwashing.
Stone
Again, I think you go too far. These are people who have been misinformed, not some evil conspiracy to mock education. Some are invincibly ignorant, I'll grant you that, but they aren't the scum of the earth.
I think maybe sometimes you get a bit carried away with this stuff. It's only an Academic debate after all. No need to get so excited.
You've already been shown most of the data here --
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9603160&postcount=443
-- and here
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=9604546&postcount=452
-- and your Majesty was not pleased. Furthermore, you know you've already seen the data and disallowed it. So why are you pretending to want it all over again? As one of our other posters has recently said, there's no new evidence for anyone to see. Whatever we have, we have. So you have a choice: you can go with the MORE LIKELY conclusions -- because that's all that ancient history can afford us for fringe counter-cultural subversives who aren't kings or generals -- or you can model that tin-foil-hat that's on display at Myther, Inc.
I'm guessing you've already made your choice.
Stone
If/When the mobs come to torch the centers of higher learning, you may feel quite differently. I don't know where you're from, but I have to say point-blank that there are certain pockets in the U.S. where graduate schools feel quite threatened with the yahoo bigotry all around them. Maybe people from other industrialized countries of the so-called free world just don't feel so threatened. If so, my congratulations. Here, we do feel threatened. I know of no other advanced country that actually has certain pockets and regions that downright glorify ignorance as though it's somehow a sign of freedom. And that's no exaggeration. I wish it were.
Stone
I'm in Australia. It's not perfect, but it's not like the US in that regard. But still it's not the Mythers who are threatening grad schools with their yahoo bigotry.
When they come for you with their pitch forks and scythes, just mow them down with your constitutionally approved automatic weapons...
Belz...
Fiend God
That's not a correction, since two is included in "at least one".
Who's the second ? Please don't mention Josephus, you'd only make a fool of yourself.
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