Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Just to save some time, I'm 60-40 in favor of a historical Jesus. As these things go, forty is a big number for the short end. I take it as a very serious possibility that Jesus was made up. It doesn't follow, however, that I accept every story about evidence that comes down the pike.

.

Without the usual animosity and personalised little battles that seem to plague these HJ threads, can I ask how you put a figure like 60-40 on it?

You think it's that bit more likely than not. But why exactly? Is there some evidential reason for that. Some evidence which you think actually shows Jesus to have been a real person?

Or is the 60-40 figure more like just a gut reaction of thinking that surely a story as extensive as that of Jesus with the huge edifice that has become modern day Christianity, could not have conceivably been based on no real figure at all?

Or perhaps there is one particular element, whilst not itself actually evidence, that nevertheless makes you think Jesus was probably real. Such as thinking a specific name like Yehoshua/Jesus would not have been simply applied to a messiah who was not a real person?

 

[IanS]

Well, I am 100-zip in favor of mythology.

Which just shows that you are not being reasonable about this issue: you are concluding where you have no evidence.

Dejudge can, and no doubt will, answer for himself, but that 100-0 figure seems to me a perfectly reasonable and in fact logical thing to say if someone thinks that there is actually zero evidence for a real Jesus.

And personally, I have to say that in all these HJ threads, nobody has yet produced a single spec of any credible evidence of a living Jesus.

Against which, as I have highlighted here many times, there is unarguably a mountain of evidence to show that religious fanatics have in their millions, throughout history, always claimed entirely untrue witness to all manner of gods, devils, messiahs, angels, demons etc.

In fact if it comes to that, afaik even today thousands of people every day claim to have witnessed Jesus and/or God. In fact, afaik a very large number of people even claim to believe they are Jesus!

So there’s no shortage of irrefutable evidence of people, like the biblical writers (possibly), who’s fanatical beliefs lead them to invent stories of witnessing their gods. But what there is not (apparently) is any genuine evidence of a real Jesus.

 

[Belz...]

Dejudge can, and no doubt will, answer for himself, but that 100-0 figure seems to me a perfectly reasonable and in fact logical thing to say if someone thinks that there is actually zero evidence for a real Jesus.

The reasonable thing to say is "I don't know", not "I'm 100% sure he never lived."

 

[IanS]

What on earth makes you say that? You appear to be the only one here who doesn't understand how Historians reach their conclusions. Why are you projecting your ignorance on to me?



You don't appear to be reading what I write.

Those two sentences were questions to you. That's why each sentence ended with a question mark. I was asking if you really meant to be adopting those two positions.


Also you are going to have to stop your constant name calling and personalised insults, otherwise you will eventually fall foul of the moderators here.

 

[IanS]

The reasonable thing to say is "I don't know", not "I'm 100% sure he never lived."

But that is not what he said.

What he said was that he is 100% in favour of the mythology explanation.

That is quite different from anyone saying they know for certain Jesus could never have existed.

 

[dejudge]

60/40
conman/myth

A bit cruel, perhaps, but it sounds about right.

All you have is a sound byte. Your Jesus is just noise.

There was never any evidence from antiquity for a human Jesus with a human father.

If Jesus had a human father then it cannot be explained how so-called honest Christians managed to fool potential converts.

How did Paul as a Jew manage to fool people all over the Roman Empire that a dead Jesus was God Creator?

If Jesus did live and was human and died then the Pauline Corpus makes no sense whatsoever.

If Jesus did survive the crucifixion then why did he not continue to preach the Gospel?

The entire NT Canon and Jesus story must be a fable.

If Jesus did exist he must have been human.

If Jesus died then he did not resurrect.

Paul claimed he was a witness that God raised Jesus from the dead.

I would have expected that Jesus would have written some letters to his followers instead of Paul to let them know he was raised from the dead.

I would have expected that Paul would been with resurrected Jesus PARADING the Roman Empire.

I would have expected that the resurrected Jesus would have been the center of attention.

The opposite happened.

Jesus resurrected and we hear nothing from him again.

The NT Canon is a compilation of fiction and forgery.

To this day not a single early NT manuscript has been recovered in Jerusalem or Galille.

To this day not a single early NT manuscript has been found in any Hebrew language.

To this day no known Jew has been documented as a follower of Jesus in the 1st century.

Examine the NT Canon it is supposedly authored predominantly by Jews or persons who were either in Galilee or Jerusalem.

Incredibly, virtually all NT manuscripts have been found in Egypt or outside Jerusalem and Galilee.

The Jesus story and Pauline Corpus are not history and was unknown in Jerusalem and Galilee in the 1st century.

We have the writings of Philo, Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius and there is nothing about Jesus of Nazareth--nothing of Nazareth.

If Jesus did live and survived the crucifixion then we would expect letters from Jesus--Not Paul-- and that he would have PREACHED the Gospel himself to the Romans and all over the Roman Empire.

Jesus himself as a resurrected being would have been a most powerful influence in the 1st century.

Instead we hear from Paul.

Instead we hear Pauline fiction derived from "revelations" of the dead.

The historical Jesus is a myth.

 

[pakeha]

I can agree with a number of your statements with no difficulty, dejudge.
It's clear Jesus, if he existed, was a human who was born, lived and died.
We know his followers made claims about the End of the World is Nigh and that Jesus performed miracles, including resurrecting from the dead.

Beyond that lies spiritual cons, IMO.
Whether Jesus existed or not, his followers told the most ridiculous porkies under the sun, that much is painfully clear.
Did they themselves believe their own porkies?
Who knows?

 

[eight bits]

Ian

But why exactly? Is there some evidential reason for that. Some evidence which you think actually shows Jesus to have been a real person?

Shows? Evidence doesn't show. Evidence is an observation that someone might possibly estimate is more likely to have been observed given some resolutions of an uncertainity compared with other resolutions of the uncertainty. Different people might disagree about whether some observed circumstance actually does have that contrast, or about how great the contrast is, or even about which resolutions are favored and which are disfavored by some observation. The quality of being observed and having the potential are what suffices for something to be evidence.

It's funny that you and I seem to agree about what are the possible resolutions of the "historical Jesus" uncertainty, and we generally agree where the bulk of the pertinent available observations may be found, but apparently we disagree that those observations include evidence. I suspect that's because of our different definitions of evidence. As it happens, I don't know what your definition of evidence is, just that it is radically different from mine. It's hard to have much of a discussion without some shared sense of what the words mean.

dejudge

You do have a tendency to shotgun, and there's not a lot for me to say about what you would have expected, or what Paul or Jesus ought to have done in your view, etc. But I do have just a few questions about things you seem to have read somewhere.

How did Paul as a Jew manage to fool people all over the Roman Empire that a dead Jesus was God Creator?

Paul said that? Could you provide the letter, chapter and verse?

Paul claimed he was a witness that God raised Jesus from the dead.

No, Paul claimed that Jesus appeared to him afterwards and after appearing to hundreds of others. If that is not what you read, then could you provide the letter, chapter and verse for this other claim?

 

[Aepervius]

Without the usual animosity and personalised little battles that seem to plague these HJ threads, can I ask how you put a figure like 60-40 on it?

You think it's that bit more likely than not. But why exactly? Is there some evidential reason for that. Some evidence which you think actually shows Jesus to have been a real person?

Or is the 60-40 figure more like just a gut reaction of thinking that surely a story as extensive as that of Jesus with the huge edifice that has become modern day Christianity, could not have conceivably been based on no real figure at all?

Or perhaps there is one particular element, whilst not itself actually evidence, that nevertheless makes you think Jesus was probably real. Such as thinking a specific name like Yehoshua/Jesus would not have been simply applied to a messiah who was not a real person?

I cannot speak for the poster you quoted, but i can tell you how I come to ,y own 60-40 :
from all the gathered reasoning and the very very few evidence, I think that a historical Jesus is slightly more likely than not. That said the one purporting there is a consensus did not bring anything really solid to show existence of jesus. That's not a huge difference, so around 50-50 => 60-40. Now , even if there was an historical jesus, there is probably no trace of it anywhere. So whoever that was is was most probably from the region, male, and most probably executed. Maybe a few more detail here and there. The rest is sketchy.

So yeah. 60-40 or maybe even 55-45. A loaded coin. ETA: and if we are speaking of the new testament Jesus with all its action : near zero % chance he existed as described. An Epsilon.

In comparison there are other "persons" I would definitively say : almost certainly not existed or almost certainly existed.

 

[Belz...]

But that is not what he said.

What he said was that he is 100% in favour of the mythology explanation.

That is quite different from anyone saying they know for certain Jesus could never have existed.

You'll have to clarify that for me. If he's 100% in favour of mythology, then how can you conclude that he leaves any doubt open about the historical possibility ? And if he doesn't, then doesn't that mean the same thing as I said ?

 

[dejudge]

I can agree with a number of your statements with no difficulty, dejudge.
It's clear Jesus, if he existed, was a human who was born, lived and died.
We know his followers made claims about the End of the World is Nigh and that Jesus performed miracles, including resurrecting from the dead.

Your follow-up statement is contradictory.

We do not know that Jesus existed and actually had followers.

We do not know that it was his actual followers who wrote the stories.

It has been deduced that the Gospels and the Pauline Corpus are riddled with forgeries and events that did not happen and could not have happened.

There is simply nothing in the NT and Apologetic sources to make Jesus a figure of history.

The books of the NT Canon must have fabricated very late in order to be believed and that is precisely what has been found.

All NT manuscripts that have been found are dated NO earlier than the 2nd century.

The earliest non-Apologetic source to mention Christians who worshiped a crucified man is Lucian of Samosata c 160-170 CE.

Until new historical evidence is found I will consider the Jesus character as a figure of mythology like Plutarch's Romulus.

1. When Romulus died--Day was turned to night--the same thing happened when Jesus died.

2. After Romulus died he resurrected and appeared to Romans---the same thing happened to Jesus--he appeared to Jews.

3.After Romulus' post-resurrection appearance he ascended--the same thing happen to Jesus.

4. Romulus was the founder of Rome--Jesus is the founder of the New Roman religion.

I am afraid that Jesus perfectly matches the mythology of the Jews, Greeks and Romans.

Like Romulus, Jesus is pure unadulterated Myth until new historical evidence is recovered.

 

[dejudge]

No, Paul claimed that Jesus appeared to him afterwards and after appearing to hundreds of others. If that is not what you read, then could you provide the letter, chapter and verse for this other claim?

1 Corinthians 15:15 KJV

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up , if so be that the dead rise not.

The Pauline writer specifically claimed he was a witness that God raised Jesus from the dead.

 

[pakeha]

I can agree with you here

It has been deduced that the Gospels and the Pauline Corpus are riddled with forgeries and events that did not happen and could not have happened.

The thing is, dejudge, is that in modern times we've been able to see something very similar built around a real person, Sai Baba.
That the fellow was a shameless conman is immaterial.
He was real.
It's why I acknowledge the possibility Jesus was real, not for the veracity of the reports about him, but because shameless conmen, or deluded charlatans, if you will, are a dime a dozen.

 

[Brainache]

I don't think you should act that way towards other people just because other anonymous people in the world do it. It sounds like a terrible reason to do something bad.

OK. Objection noted. But it does get a bit tiresome typing "History-Denying Atheist Activists" every time.

Dejudge can, and no doubt will, answer for himself, but that 100-0 figure seems to me a perfectly reasonable and in fact logical thing to say if someone thinks that there is actually zero evidence for a real Jesus.


...

Absolute certainty is reasonable on questions of Ancient History? OK

Those two sentences were questions to you. That's why each sentence ended with a question mark. I was asking if you really meant to be adopting those two positions.

Did I not answer you?

Also you are going to have to stop your constant name calling and personalised insults, otherwise you will eventually fall foul of the moderators here.

Thanks for your concern. I have over 10,000 posts and three infractions (no points) the last of which was about 7 years ago.

I think the moderators might be more inclined to think that someone is provoking me, if I do happen to overstep my usual restraint.

Either way, it is good advice.

Cheers.

 

[dejudge]

I can agree with you here


The thing is, dejudge, is that in modern times we've been able to something very similar built around a real person, Sai Baba.
That the fellow was a shameless conman is immaterial.
He was real.
It's why I acknowledge the possibility Jesus was real, not for the veracity of the reports about him, but because shameless conmen, or deluded charlatans, if you will, are a dime a dozen.

We already know anything is possible. It is possible that Jesus was myth. Right now we are at the EVIDENCE stage. What evidence can you provide?

We have two arguments.

1. Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of mythology.

2. Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of history [a human being with human parents].

We have hundreds upon hundreds of NT manuscripts and Apologetic writings that described Jesus of Nazareth as a figure of mythology from the 2nd century and later.

There is no historical sources for Jesus of Nazareth with human parents--Not even Nazareth is mentioned.

There is no historical trace of his parents, relatives, disciples including Peter and Paul. They all evaporated.

The matter is closed.

The evidence supports that Jesus was a figure of mythology.

 

[pgwenthold]

The only known original source, ie the primary source, for any mention of Jesus, is the biblical writing. Where did you get something called "the Historical Jesus" from?

How did you get from that Biblical writing to produce some other notional figure you call "the Historical Jesus"?

I've been thinking about this lately. Why are we talking about the "historical Jesus" that is distinct from the biblical Jesus? Because everyone knows that the Biblical Jesus is nonsense. Hence, we have to think about something else.

It's basically, ok, the biblical Jesus is crap, but the stories must have originated from a real person, and we'll call him the "Historical Jesus." Then the question is not "Was there a historical Jesus," because that is assumed, but what were the properties of that historical Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

dejudge

So, if that's what you're relying on, then you and I seem to agree that Paul didn't write that he had witnessed Jesus' resurrection. Thank you for clarifying what you meant to write when you wrote "Paul claimed he was a witness that God raised Jesus from the dead."

Any progress on the other matter? "How did Paul as a Jew manage to fool people all over the Roman Empire that a dead Jesus was God Creator?" Did Paul write that? Could you provide letter, chapter and verse?

 

[Brainache]

I've been thinking about this lately. Why are we talking about the "historical Jesus" that is distinct from the biblical Jesus? Because everyone knows that the Biblical Jesus is nonsense. Hence, we have to think about something else.

It's basically, ok, the biblical Jesus is crap, but the stories must have originated from a real person, and we'll call him the "Historical Jesus." Then the question is not "Was there a historical Jesus," because that is assumed, but what were the properties of that historical Jesus.

Yes. That is exactly how Professionals study Ancient History.

Do we really need to say these things on an Education website?

 

[dejudge]

I've been thinking about this lately. Why are we talking about the "historical Jesus" that is distinct from the biblical Jesus? Because everyone knows that the Biblical Jesus is nonsense. Hence, we have to think about something else.

It's basically, ok, the biblical Jesus is crap, but the stories must have originated from a real person, and we'll call him the "Historical Jesus." Then the question is not "Was there a historical Jesus," because that is assumed, but what were the properties of that historical Jesus.

If the historical Jesus was NOT Jesus of Nazareth then it is virtually impossible to argue for an historical Jesus.

How would you determine when the supposed historical Jesus lived?

Where would you find the unknown biography?

The matter is extremely simple.

A character called Jesus of Nazareth is in the Bible.

1. Is he a figure of Mythology.

2. Is he a figure of history?

The same questions can be applied to any character in the Bible.

Was Pilate in the Bible a figure of mythology or history? Was Tiberius in the Bible a figure of history or mythology.

We can find historical data to show that Pilate and Tiberius were figures of history.

However, the Entire Cast of characters--Jesus, the disciples, Peter, Paul, Mary and James cannot be found outside the Bible and Apologetics.

They all evaporated.

They are all Myths until new historical data is found.

 

[IanS]

You'll have to clarify that for me. If he's 100% in favour of mythology, then how can you conclude that he leaves any doubt open about the historical possibility ? And if he doesn't, then doesn't that mean the same thing as I said ?

Well, he can tell you for himself. But what he said was that he is 100% in favour of the mythology explanation. So for example -

- the reason I would describe myself as an atheist is that I simply don't believe in the existence of God. I am 100%, ie entirely, of the belief that God does not exist. I simply don’t believe it at all. However, that is very different from me claiming that I can be certain he definitely does not (or could not) exist.

So there is a huge difference.

In one case I am stating a personal belief position, eg that I believe God does not exist at all. But in the other case, if I said I was certain that God does not exist, then that is not claiming only a personal belief, it's claiming to know that God does not exist regardless of what anyone else may say or think.