And what is the evidence when the HJ-existed-for-sure experts get around to describing it instead of trying to claim it exists because all reputable scholars agree it does?
It is damn slim. There are the writings of Paul believed to be genuine, but they exist completely without external corroboration and the possibilities that Paul lied, Paul was fooled, Paul's writings were forged and that Paul didn't exist can't be disproved.
Dave -
It’s far worse than that.
For a start, we don’t know what Paul ever originally wrote about his belief in Jesus, because we have precisely nothing ever written by him.
What we have are
“copies” written (apparently) by the Christian faithful themselves at least (probably) 150+ years after Paul had died.
It does not take more than a few words added, deleted or altered in a few places to change completely what we now think might have been Paul’s meaning in sentences which are often ambiguous anyway.
For example, the one thing that most scholars take to be significant evidence of Jesus are the words
“the Lords brother”. But those words occur at the very end of one short sentence, which was otherwise a completed sentence without those words. Ie, the sentence is
“other apostles saw I none…” and then the extra words are
“ …. save James, the Lords brother”.
It should be obvious that that those few final explanatory words may have been added by later scribes who had come think Paul would have met an apostle named James who was by that later time of the copyists, thought to be
“the Lords brother”.
In which respect - iirc, nowhere else in all of Paul’s writing does he ever again say that James was the Lords brother. And also, that same
“James” was supposed to be the person who wrote the epistles of
“James”, who says there all sorts of things, but never once claimed to be the brother of Jesus.
And finally, there are several different people named
“James” in the bible, and the biblical authors seem in various places to mix them up, so that it appears they did not always know themselves which
“James” they were talking about.
That is not meant as
proof to show that Paul could not possibly have really meant that
“James” was the actual family brother of Jesus. But it does mean that we should exercise extreme caution before accepting something like that at face value (and we could add the fact that in all of Paul’s writing he frequently uses the terms
“brother”,
“brothers” and
“brethren”, but far more often to mean brothers in belief, and not actual family members).
All of which is apart from the fact that it’s very clear indeed from all of Paul’s letters that he never met anyone called Jesus, and that he himself repeatedly stresses that he has no information at all about Jesus from any human man. But instead that he has all his information from what he called
“scripture” and by
“revelation”, in other words, from his scriptural OT beliefs. And certainly, in none of Paul’s letters does he ever quote any information about Jesus saying it came from any eye-witness (such as
“James”) who had ever told him any such details about any earthly existence of Jesus.
So Paul is most definitely talking about his theological beliefs. And certainly not about anything he personally either knew of Jesus, or that he ever had as any eye-witness or any brotherly family details of Jesus. There is nothing remotely like that in anything Paul says.
After Paul there are the Gospels. John is usually discounted entirely because of its late date and contradictions with the other three Gospels. And Matthew and Luke seem to be completely dependent on Mark for the bulk of their story except when they make up stories like the birth narrative and the trial narrative. If there is truthful information in Matthew and Luke beyond what is in Mark, how could one determine what that is? One might make some guesses about plausibility and criteria of embarrassment but does any of that lead to evidence strong enough to support a conclusion that it is extremely likely that an HJ existed. I don't think so.
And after the Gospels there are the other NT books. Is there anything probative in them with regard to the existence of an HJ. I haven't seen those arguments if they exist. Although James is sometimes put forth as an example of a book that may have been derived from a Jesus oriented Palestinian sect. Maybe, the evidence seems speculative to me.
And after the other NT books there are the alleged non-biblical corroborations of the NT. When one cuts out the crap here there are only two that are possibilities: Josephus and Tacitus. These sources have been argued endlessly. Neither individual could have been a witness to an HJ. Both at best might be a witness to Christians at a fairly early date. There is great dispute about the authenticity of the Josephus writings and my guess is that the arguments that dispute authenticity are correct. But regardless of my guess about this it is clear there are significant reasons to doubt the authenticity of Josephus on the HJ and as such Joshephus' alleged writings about the HJ don't contribute much support to a case that it is extremely likely that an HJ existed.
None of those gospels are admissible as credibly reliable evidence anyway, for all the reasons I set out earlier in respect of legal cases and the criteria so carefully and painstakingly refined over centuries of legal evaluation of what can be offered before a jury as reliable genuine
“evidence” of anything (
“evidence” really means
testimony offered for consideration as
“evidence”) vs. what is definitely not admissible to be put before any jury, on the grounds that it is too unreliable to be taken in consideration without serious risk of misleading the jury into making entirely wrong decisions.
And that almost always rules out
hearsay evidence. And it absolutely always rules out hearsay evidence claimed to come from anonymous witnesses who cannot ever be produced before the court at all. And that is most definitely the case with all four canonical gospels - they are all hearsay from anonymous writers (in fact they are known only from much later Christian copies from yet more anonymous copyists!).
Of course, those who believe a HJ was likely, will often say that we are not in a court and that such legal rules do not apply. Well they most certainly should apply. Because that is the very reason they were brought into existence long ago in all democratic western courts … precisely to avoid the jurors being deceived by testimony that might sound effective or persuasive, but which is actually coming as uncorroborated hearsay stories from entirely anonymous sources who cannot provide any of the original claimed witnesses to support anything they say.
That sort of
“evidence” is no good here for exactly the same reasons that it’s not allowed in a court, ie because it is not reliable or credible as
“evidence” at all, and is actually unfit even to be
considered by the jury.
IOW - that is not merely a case of thinking that perhaps a jury should hear that sort of testimony in case there is at least something in it that just might be true (leaving out all the obviously untrue miracle claims) on the basis that certain elements were at least physically possible (someone could have gone to Jerusalem, and someone could have met someone named Peter, they could have had bread and wine for supper). But on the contrary, that sort of
testimony/”evidence” is ruled out of consideration entirely (in any part) by the jury, precisely to avoid that sort of dishonest attempt to suggest that the jury might like consider inadmissible evidence just in case they wish to believe some part of it ... you could not possibly have a barrister telling the judge that he should allow fundamentally inadmissible evidence like that, because that barrister would like to try attempting to persuade the jury that they might like to believe some parts of it ... that would be instantly overruled by the judge, because that is a blatant attempt to bypass the rules of admissible evidence and dishonestly influence the jury ... and that is exactly what is happening here in the HJ case when people say that we should remove all the miracles, but still consider the inadmissible anonymous copyist testimony to see if what is left can be used to persuade any gullible
"juror" to think it is reliable in any measure at all.
