Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Then I wouldn't be calling it a "Jesus Myth" theory. Just Historical speculation.

You can't be seriously telling me at this stage of the debate that you are unfamiliar with the ideas of Carrier and Doherty. Can you?

Unless you've been under a rock for the last two years, it's what the whole thing is about.

Go talk to Kapyong.

G'day.

What you call it does NOT count. It is how the apologists themselves define Christ Myth and they have defined it as the story of Jesus "possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes"

Eddy and Boyd (2007) and Stanton (2002) by classifying Jesus Myth (1996), which accepted a historical Jesus being behind hypothetical Q Gospel, as Christ Myth confirms this.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth and you cannot go all Humpty Dumpty and say the term means what you say.

Price stated "For even if we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus." (Price, Robert (2012) The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems pg 387-8) and yet G. R. S. Mead and Alvar Ellegård who have suggest this position have been called "Christ Mythers" by the apologists.

The apologists themselves have defined Christ Myth as covering what you want to called historical speculation which puts us right back a square one.

I think these side-issue discussions are taking us far from the actual question here of whether there was or was not a real Jesus, and especially discussions like this particular one which is actually just about the meaning of words.

But what is a fact in all these HJ threads, is that sceptics here have objected numerous times to certain posters here repeatedly describing people as mythers and mythicists. That same objection was being made 5 years ago on the old RDF when the blogger named here (Tim O’Neil) also repeatedly insisted on calling everyone who disagreed with him a “myther” … so that objection is not new here ; most people being described as a myther object to that when they are not proposing that Jesus was mythical. So as matter of decent respect it would be better if people did not try to use such terms to describe opposing opinion here.

However, on the point of earlier writers having tried to define the term more widely to mean (for example) people who believe there was a person called Jesus but not as described in the bible - afaik, nobody now believes Jesus could have been as described in the bible, because that description is supernatural and totally impossible, unrealistic, and definitely fictional. So nobody believes that description of Jesus (except perhaps some mentally deluded religious fanatics).

But I’m certainly objecting to whoever it was that addressed me as a “mythicist” (Craig-B, I think it was?), because not only am I not claiming that Jesus could never have existed, I am also not claiming that the biblical writing was about an entirely fictional person.

All that I am claiming about it, is that (a)the description of Jesus as a supernatural being cannot be true. And in fact that is the bible description of this claimed person who none of those writers had ever seen, and who they all thought was no longer in existence on earth when they wrote about it. And (b) I am asking what evidence any believers can cite that shows Jesus was indeed known at the time to be a real human person.

That is not a “mythicist, myther" position. That is a position of simply stating that biblical accounts of Jesus (inc. Paul’s letters) are impossible because of their constant supernatural nature, and asking in the light of that, what evidence it is that convinces anyone to think Jesus more-than-likely existed as a real non-supernatural human in the 1st century.


But as I said at the top of the page - these HJ threads are constantly being derailed by argumentative irrelevant side-issues (such as attempts at continually making insulting remarks, mainly from the pro-HJ side), when the point here really is that our only primary information about Jesus is a bible which describes Jesus in physically impossible untrue terms, and where it seems nobody who believes in Jesus can cite any credible genuine evidence of his existence.

So I think that is the key observation, ie -


(a)biblical Jesus definitely not true (physically impossible),

and,

(b)apparently no genuine evidence (despite bible scholars saying the evidence is so vast as to provide absolute “certainty“).

 

[Craig B]

... That's an interesting argument, Stone.
But at the same time a weak one, since "imminent" apocalypse talk is evident in cults even to the present day and doesn't seem to embarrass the believers one jot.

No, it's a very strong argument. Present day cults often predict an imminent apocalypse, and established religions live with pre-existing falsified predictions. But if the older cults or religions are anything like their modern counterparts then it follows that they must have made these predictions at an early time in their history.

This suggests that the Pauline predictions are early. Moreover modern or other cults do not attribute falsified predictions to the ancient teachers from whom they draw their authority. Later followers of Paul have to live with the false predictions of Jesus and Paul; and they utter tortured ingenuities to explain them away. But they haven't gone insane enough to forge already-falsified predictions and put them in the mouths of the revered doctors of the faith. So the Pauline predictions were not invented post 180 AD.

 

[zugzwang]

pakeha wrote:

How does skepticism of an historical Jesus attack the academy?

I was talking about mythicism, not skepticism, since presumably not all skeptics are mythicists. In fact, some skeptics on this forum seem to be objecting to the m term, which is fair enough.

I was also replying to Craig B, who had made the comment that mythicism is often a political statement, rather than a scholarly one.

But if someone rejects the notion of evidence as used in historical method, or rejects other aspects of that method, then they are presumably saying that academic history itself is sloppy.

 

[pakeha]

No, it's a very strong argument. Present day cults often predict an imminent apocalypse, and established religions live with pre-existing falsified predictions. But if the older cults or religions are anything like their modern counterparts then it follows that they must have made these predictions at an early time in their history.

I can see your analogy, yes.
Still, 'Signs of the Times' claims have cropped up periodically over the last 2,500 years so it's hard to think of Paul's as being somehow definitive in setting a date as to their composition.

...This suggests that the Pauline predictions are early. Moreover modern or other cults do not attribute falsified predictions to the ancient teachers from whom they draw their authority. Later followers of Paul have to live with the false predictions of Jesus and Paul; and they utter tortured ingenuities to explain them away. But they haven't gone insane enough to forge already-falsified predictions and put them in the mouths of the revered doctors of the faith. So the Pauline predictions were not invented post 180 AD.

I see your point. Later authors wouldn't have put false prophecies into Paul's writings.
So it's reasonable to state, using that logic, there's a 180 CE upper limit to dating Paul's epistles.

pakeha wrote:

How does skepticism of an historical Jesus attack the academy?

I was talking about mythicism, not skepticism, since presumably not all skeptics are mythicists. In fact, some skeptics on this forum seem to be objecting to the m term, which is fair enough.

I was also replying to Craig B, who had made the comment that mythicism is often a political statement, rather than a scholarly one.

But if someone rejects the notion of evidence as used in historical method, or rejects other aspects of that method, then they are presumably saying that academic history itself is sloppy.

Of course skeptics object to your use of the term and to your claim that doubting the historicity of Jesus is an attack on the academy, akin to being a creationist.

"if someone rejects the notion of evidence as used in historical method, or rejects other aspects of that method, then they are presumably saying that academic history itself is sloppy"

Could you explain what evidence as used in historical method has been found to support the idea of an HJ?

 

[eight bits]

zugzwang

But the word 'myth' seems to be very elastic - see for example 'urban myths', which are of course, not mythological!

But that, too, is how it is with language. Urban myth is a noun phrase, with a meaning of its own, distinct from a myth set in a city, or any other "sum of its parts" interpretation.

The received corpus includes a myth that Jesus walked on water. We can see that the myth evolved (like the whole religion did) from a ghost story, not a legend, not a myth, just an anecdote about the calibre of men Jesus surrounded himself with: hardworking, heavily taxed fishermen who were easily suggestible and subject to hallucinations.


pakeha

Apparently, if I've understood the last several pages correctly, it's parsimony.

Couldn't be. Parsimony is at its best a heuristic, and a labile one at that. (Invariably, (s)he who appeals to parsimony estimates their own story as exceedingly parsimonious. Rebuttal is either indifference, since there is no arguing preference among heuristics, or in the alternative, "No, my story is actually the more parsimonious." Either way, a dead end.) Argument, not evidence.


Craig

No, it's a very strong argument. Present day cults often predict an imminent apocalypse, and established religions live with pre-existing falsified predictions. But if the older cults or religions are anything like their modern counterparts then it follows that they must have made these predictions at an early time in their history.

In all seriousness, what is the evidence that a failed prediction couldn't be advantageous to a religious cult? Cognitive dissonance can do wonders for (remaining) members' commitment to the cause, and I'm still waiting for that first representative of a cult on the make who knocks on my door and appeals to my rational faculties as a reason for signing up.

The Olivet prophecy is the infallible word of God, I'm told by some, and it simply didn't happen. The Vatican, meanwhile, is beside itself trying to figure out what to do with its wealth.

Crikey, I'm predicting here and now that Romney won last year, and that he is the true mystical President of the United States, and will re-emerge soon, in the lifetime of some who are reading this post, to replace the odious Obamacare with the immaculately concieved Romneycare, and thereupon shall the panels of death be made into the panels of everlasting life. Can I have an amen?

I take Bitcoin.

 

[Belz...]

(a)biblical Jesus definitely not true (physically impossible),

and,

(b)apparently no genuine evidence (despite bible scholars saying the evidence is so vast as to provide absolute “certainty“).

So far so good, for me.

Don't forget (c), though: assuming we want the best explanation for the birth of Christianity, what would our best guess be ?

 

[Craig B]

I see your point. Later authors wouldn't have put false prophecies into Paul's writings.
So it's reasonable to state, using that logic, there's a 180 CE upper limit to dating Paul's epistles.

No, I didn't mean that. I mentioned 180 AD because that date has been raised in this context. My argument suggests, and my belief is, that the prediction in Thessalonians dates back to Paul's lifetime, and that therefore in all probability the whole epistle does too, along with such others as may be shown to have come from the same pen.

 

[Craig B]

... I'm still waiting for that first representative of a cult on the make who knocks on my door and appeals to my rational faculties as a reason for signing up.

Many such persons will turn up before one turns up who has inserted a fabricated and disconfirmed prophecy into one of his or her own holy texts.

I take Bitcoin.

Then appeals to your rational faculties are in vain.

 

[IanS]

But if someone rejects the notion of evidence as used in historical method, or rejects other aspects of that method, then they are presumably saying that academic history itself is sloppy.

Nobody here is rejecting what genuine university academic non-religious historians produce as evidence in the case of non-religious history, such as the evidence they cite for Roman emperor’s of that time. We are not saying that sort of historical study is particularly "sloppy".

But those are not the academics who are writing about the historicity of Jesus. The individuals who are writing about Jesus are a mixture of bible-studies scholars, theologians, and people who are simply devout Christian theist writers.

For example - we have had the names of quite a number of the most prominent academics here, but in every single case it has been shown that all of those people are in fact bible-studies scholars with qualifications overwhelmingly in religious studies, and teaching in religious studies departments, not in secular univ. history departments. Not one of them has turned out to be secular univ,. “historian” teaching in a secular mainstream univ. history department.

What is being objected to as sloppy far from objective and simply not good enough, is the evidence being claimed by those bible-studies scholars, theologians and Christian writers.

 

[IanS]

Don't forget (c), though: assuming we want the best explanation for the birth of Christianity, what would our best guess be ?

Well you asked me before to propose a specific myth theory, and I did that for you with references to the relevant passages of the OT. So that was a "guess" for you as to how Paul may have very easily come to have believed in a messiah who was (a)apocalyptic, (b)a scion of Yahweh, (c)prophesised to be rejected and persecuted by his own people (perhaps even unto death), and (d)whose name was prophesised to be Yehosua.

But any guess of a real Jesus drawn from the biblical writing of Paul and the gospel authors, is certainly a guess drawn from what was actually preaching of 2000 year old religious faith (that's what is in the bible).

If you want to believe 60:40 without any genuine credible or independent evidence of Jesus, then of course that’s up to you. But that is a belief without evidence, and a belief drawn from the faith of religious preaching in biblical times (very ignorant times swathed in religious superstition and belief in miracles and the supernatural).

 

[pakeha]

No, I didn't mean that. I mentioned 180 AD because that date has been raised in this context. My argument suggests, and my belief is, that the prediction in Thessalonians dates back to Paul's lifetime, and that therefore in all probability the whole epistle does too, along with such others as may be shown to have come from the same pen.

Oh, sorry.
I myself had taken 144 as the upper cut off date for the authorship of the epistles since Paul's first cited by Marcion, correct me if I'm wrong.
Or should we count Clement epistle, even though the authorship is uncertain?

 

[Belz...]

Well you asked me before to propose a specific myth theory, and I did that for you with references to the relevant passages of the OT. So that was a "guess" for you as to how Paul may have very easily come to have believed in a messiah who was (a)apocalyptic, (b)a scion of Yahweh, (c)prophesised to be rejected and persecuted by his own people (perhaps even unto death), and (d)whose name was prophesised to be Yehosua.

Yeah but that's not my question now. I'm asking you which one, in your opinion, between HJ and MJ, is the more likely option.

 

[Craig B]

Oh, sorry.
I myself had taken 144 as the upper cut off date for the authorship of the epistles since Paul's first cited by Marcion, correct me if I'm wrong.
Or should we count Clement epistle, even though the authorship is uncertain?

I was talking about the ones there's reason to believe are early on account of their content, even though they're not cited till later.

 

[IanS]

Apparently, if I've understood the last several pages correctly, it's parsimony.

That does appear to be the claim. Ie, it's claimed that a real Jesus is the simplest explanation.

But how can it be the simplest explanation when there is no evidence to support it?

Example - the claim that God made the universe is certainly a simpler statement than attempting to understand all of the theoretical physics of the Big Bang, relativity and QM. But there is no evidence to say how a God could have made the universe.

It's certainly simple to say that since the bible says Jesus existed, the easiest thing is just to believe it. But as with God and the universe, the problem is that there is actually no credible genuine evidence of Jesus ... and that is of course apart from the fact that the actual description that was given of Jesus, is now known to be untrue fiction (which is itself very good evidence that the bible writers were seriously untrustworthy in what they claimed).

If we are talking about "parsimony", then think it’s probably more parsimonious to conclude that the Jesus story was probably only ever mythical, just like almost every other religious belief of the time. Though in your case I think I may be "preaching to the converted" on that point .

 

[IanS]

Yeah but that's not my question now. I'm asking you which one, in your opinion, between HJ and MJ, is the more likely option.

Well the absolutely honest answer to that is the one that I have given repeatedly all the way through all of these threads. And that is - I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to put any figure on it either way. Because there is simply no credible evidence of this figure as a real person.

That does not mean that a human preacher of some sort could never have existed as the basis of what later became the biblical messiah stories. Because after all it does seem there were hundreds of such preachers in that small region at any one time. So the biblical stories might have been based on a mish-mash of all sorts of mistaken ideas and beliefs about any one of those earlier preachers. But that is unknowable, and really also a quite pointless speculation.

On the other hand, the figure of Jesus described in the bible is certainly fictional. And that is the only description actually ever given of Jesus. So that cannot be true.

Finally, is it possible that no such figure of Jesus ever existed at all? Yes of course it is. Religion has always been full of myth making and claims of entirely mythical figures. And in that respect there is of course a mountain of evidence showing why religious miracle stories like this have always been both numerous and also entirely fictional.

 

[dejudge]

No, I didn't mean that. I mentioned 180 AD because that date has been raised in this context. My argument suggests, and my belief is, that the prediction in Thessalonians dates back to Paul's lifetime, and that therefore in all probability the whole epistle does too, along with such others as may be shown to have come from the same pen.

You have no corroborative evidence for Paul's lifetime so your assumptions and beliefs are really worthless.

It is wholly unacceptable to use ONLY the words of Paul to corroborate the very same writer. Your methodology is practiced by Sunday School teachers--you merely believe Paul wrote the truth in the Bible.

Even the Church writers had no idea when Paul really lived, what he wrote and when he wrote them.

Origen claimed Paul was ALIVE after gLuke was composed yet it is claimed Paul died under Nero. gLuke was most likely composed AFTER c 93 CE.

The author of the Muratorian Canon claimed the Pauline Corpus was composed AFTER Revelation by John.

Revelation by John was most likely composed after Nero was dead and after the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE.

 

[Belz...]

Well the absolutely honest answer to that is the one that I have given repeatedly all the way through all of these threads. And that is - I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to put any figure on it either way. Because there is simply no credible evidence of this figure as a real person.

That does not mean that a human preacher of some sort could never have existed as the basis of what later became the biblical messiah stories. Because after all it does seem there were hundreds of such preachers in that small region at any one time. So the biblical stories might have been based on a mish-mash of all sorts of mistaken ideas and beliefs about any one of those earlier preachers. But that is unknowable, and really also a quite pointless speculation.

On the other hand, the figure of Jesus described in the bible is certainly fictional. And that is the only description actually ever given of Jesus. So that cannot be true.

Finally, is it possible that no such figure of Jesus ever existed at all? Yes of course it is. Religion has always been full of myth making and claims of entirely mythical figures. And in that respect there is of course a mountain of evidence showing why religious miracle stories like this have always been both numerous and also entirely fictional.

Thank you for your thoughtful answer. I do believe we are in reasonable agreement.

 

[Craig B]

You have no corroborative evidence for Paul's lifetime so your assumptions and beliefs are really worthless.

That's hilarious. The only assumption I make is that Paul wrote this before the end of his lifetime:

1 Thess 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air

Only The Lord didn't come back before Paul died. Did the forgers post 180 put this in to make Paul look like an idiot? No, Paul put it in, because he was an apocalypticist, and that's what he believed.

 

[Stone]

--
The presence of "imminent" apocalypse talk in the seven authentics is a potential embarrassment in 180 c.e. -- as well as for Christians in any subsequent period -- that no second-century Christian forger is going to insert in a Pauline forgery. This is why the presence of just such "imminent" talk in the same seven Paulines duly authenticated by academe must be a sign of authenticity and can come only from Paul's lifetime, when the notion of imminent apocalypse was still seriously considered and not yet a source of embarrassment.

Stone

That's an interesting argument, Stone.
But at the same time a weak one, since "imminent" apocalypse talk is evident in cults even to the present day and doesn't seem to embarrass the believers one jot.

All "doomsdayers" in every century say that it's imminent. That's why your analogy is absurd: If today we read a doomsdayer from the previous century, he now looks ridiculous, because we know nothing happened. Hey, we're still here. OOPS. The only doomsdayers who have a chance at not looking totally silly are from today -- because they haven't yet been thoroughly discredited. By 180, Paul's "doomsdaying" in 60 is completely discredited. No Christian forger in 180 will deliberately remind anyone that Paul is wrong here. No Christian forger will do that to Paul.

Stone

 

[IanS]

deleted ... question already answered above.