Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Craig B]

You must have a lot of people on ignore if you missed all the times it's been presented already.

You forget the caveat

Please do not tell me it's the words of the bible.

To IanS there's a uniformly false integral entity called "The Bible" which is not accessible to critical analysis and cannot be used in any way as a source of possible information. I don't know whether IanS agrees with dejudge that the NT is a conscious fiction concocted centuries later, and I'd like to have his opinion on this.

 

[H'ethetheth]

I'm reminded of the "evolution is dead" claims frequently bandied about by creationists.

Right, because the HJ is just as well proven as evolution.

Oops. My previous post was made before I read this comment. Seems I was ninja'd.

I don't know if tsig is right about Foster Zygote's implication, but there was a thread a while ago quite specifically about that.
It's one thing to state that the evidence for a historical Jesus is better than for a mythical one, but comparing it with evolution vs. creationism is another, very silly, thing.

 

[pakeha]

You forget the caveat To IanS there's a uniformly false integral entity called "The Bible" which is not accessible to critical analysis and cannot be used in any way as a source of possible information . I don't know whether IanS agrees with dejudge that the NT is a conscious fiction concocted centuries later, and I'd like to have his opinion on this.

"A source of possible information" is one thing, the only source of information is another.
Apparently, Ehrmann claims the NT is the only viable source of information pertaining to Jesus' historicity, correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't know if tsig is right about Foster Zygote's implication, but there was a thread a while ago quite specifically about that.
It's one thing to state that the evidence for a historical Jesus is better than for a mythical one, but comparing it with evolution vs. creationism is another, very silly, thing.

Yet that is an accusation Ehrmann has flung about, as well as calling those who doubt the historicity of Jesus the equivalent of truthers*.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bart-d-ehrman/did-jesus-exist_b_1349544.html

 

[Craig B]

"A source of possible information" is one thing, the only source of information is another.

Not a relevant distinction here. IanS won't have it cited at all. Whether there is other evidence is of course a matter that has been aired extensively in these threads.

Apparently, Ehrmann claims the NT is the only viable source of information pertaining to Jesus' historicity, correct me if I'm wrong.

If he does, I fear he may be right. I find the Josephus references very dubious, and there's nothing else except the three Roman authors who are referring to the existence of Christian communities, not directly to Jesus.

However, the existence at that date of Christian communities is itself evidence for an HJ, though not by any means conclusive evidence.

 

[eight bits]

pakeha

Do we know the procedures for stoning back in the day?

No. The nice thing about stoning is that it is adaptable. Burying the victim half way (preferably in a hole the victim digs herself) is a nice touch, very much in keeping with the religious mindset, but all that is necessary is that the victim has limited avenues of retreat, and that somebody is uninhibited about breaking a living body to death by blunt trauma.

Craig

No, but the titulus indicated a charge of messianic rebellion.

No, it just said King of the Jews (plus some identifying information, depending on the version). Your inference that the inscription refers to "rebellion" assumes that which is being questioned, the hypothesis that the placard decorated a Roman execution site.

There is no titulus in Paul, and the killers of Jesus are Jewish, say no more. We have no reason to think that "Mark" was doing anything more than modern historians claim to do: create a possible linear narrative, the one that impresses its author as the most likely, taken as a whiole story. Mark is quite convinced that Romans got the idea that Jesus was claiming royal status, the titulus just follows his theme.

Maybe it struck Mark as incongruous that the Romans would allow a DIY nuisance removal. Obviously, that didn't bother some later writer, whoever came up with the adultress pericope, but the Roman Passion (even though the Jews were responsible) was apparently well established by then.

That was an offence under Roman laws, but not Jewish laws as Gamaliel's speech in Acts 5 clearly shows.

Lucan Gamaliel isn't talking about Jesus, he's talking about followers of Jesus. I think you'll find that to claim falsely that you are the Messiah might just be actionable, while being mistaken about somebody else's messianic status isn't.

If we are looking at Acts, then we might flip ahead a few pages to the trial and execution of Stephen, for blaspheming Moses and God. According to Mark 10:5-6, Jesus said Moses corrupted God's teaching about divorce

But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.

So, Moses faked part of the Torah, and Jesus, speaking on God's behalf, sets everybody straight. If Stephen can be stoned for it, why not Jesus?

So far, nobody exploring the hypothesis has offered the Talmud in evidence. In other posts, you have offered incongruity as a touchstone of truth. Following pakeha, I find an incongruity here, and I'd like to see what rubs on it.

Not likely - pretty certain.

We all follow our speech patterns. I make no secret of my sympathy with probabilistic approaches to uncertain reasoning. In that perspective, certainty is the "limiting case" of uncertain leaning. What is certain, then, is also likely, as I and other probabilists speak.

 

[Belz...]

All I've seen presented is words from the bible tarted out in some fine new clothes, much like the Emperor's.

Then I'm sorry but you haven't been paying much attention.

 

[Belz...]

Huh? It seems to me that that is exactly what the HJers think in this thread -- at least by the posting style of several members.

You couldn't think of a better response than a tu quoque ?

Do you by any chance believe that Dejudge has any argument, here ?

 

[Belz...]

I don't have to. As far as I'm concerned, my money is riding on Carrier and his book and the information therein.

I haven't read his book, but I saw the 1 hour video where he outlined his ideas. Unfortunately, althought it was a well-worded and, of course, possible scenario, Carrier never provided any reason in the video why we should give any credence to that scenario, especially since it requires us to assume a part of Christianity's history which is not in evidence at all.

 

[Belz...]

However, the existence at that date of Christian communities is itself evidence for an HJ, though not by any means conclusive evidence.

Indeed. Nobody has addressed this convincingly on the MJ side, in my view.

I do wish HansMustermann were here. He usually fares much better for that side of the argument than IanS.

 

[The Norseman]

You couldn't think of a better response than a tu quoque ?

Sure, why not. I think that it's better than proclaiming "you lose" every other post.

Do you by any chance believe that Dejudge has any argument, here ?

Tentatively yes. I think he has made some legitimate points but I do not care for his posting style.

 

[The Norseman]

I haven't read his book, but I saw the 1 hour video where he outlined his ideas. Unfortunately, althought it was a well-worded and, of course, possible scenario, Carrier never provided any reason in the video why we should give any credence to that scenario, especially since it requires us to assume a part of Christianity's history which is not in evidence at all.

I like where you're going with this. What assumption was Carrier making in the video? It's an honest question because I've seen it many of his videos and I'm not sure what you're referring to.

 

[The Norseman]

Indeed. Nobody has addressed this convincingly on the MJ side, in my view.

I do wish HansMustermann were here. He usually fares much better for that side of the argument than IanS.

Yep, he was one of the people that really made me question my initial assumption that Jesus existed.

 

[pakeha]

.. It was the Romans in charge of Capital Punishment in Jerusalem in the 30s, not the Priests. The Romans didn't give a stuff about internal Jewish Theological disputes, but they didn't tolerate Rebels.

Pilate is known from other sources to be brutal towards any kind of dissent, so I don't think crucifiction is unlikely at all. ..

I'm probably being tiresome, but I've found an author who has a different view on the Romans having sole charge of capital punishment

"Methods of Execution

For religious crimes (i.e., under Jewish regulation), stoning remained the standard means, although others mentioned in the Hebrew Bible are attested (e.g., burning). Rabbinic literature (specifically in Mishnah Sanhedrin) also specifies strangulation and beheading (7.1). It was by the latter means that the murderer was to be dispatched (9.1), probably because of the precedent set in the Hebrew Bible where the murderer is to be hunted and struck down by the "avenger of blood" (Nun.35; see also chapter 1). For a few crimes in connection with the cult the offender might be clubbed to death on the spot (Mishnah Sanhedrin 9.6).

On the specific methods, it is conspicuous that only beheading will ensure the spilling of blood, a punishment otherwise reserved (in the Hebrew Bible) for the citizens of an apostate city. Israel's aversion to this method relates to the connection between blood and the life-force, a force which was identified with the power of God. It was thus a horrible fate, sanctioned by Genesis 9:6: "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed."


For political crimes, death usually came by the sword (Matt. 14:10, in the case of John the Baptist) in the form of beheading (Rev.20:4), or by crucifixion (in the case of Jesus)."



" ...It is important to notice that the death penalty in Judea during the period of the New Testament was carried out by two judiciaries:

(1) the Jewish religious courts (bet-din) for specified violations of torah, and (2) the Roman government, through its local appointees in council (sunedrion), for actions inimical to the peace. ..."
http://www.keithhunt.com/Capital5.html

I don't know how to rate the seriousness of that site, Brainache. What are your sources to indicate only the Romans could inflict the death penalty in the 30's?

 

[Craig B]

... If we are looking at Acts, then we might flip ahead a few pages to the trial and execution of Stephen, for blaspheming Moses and God. According to Mark 10:5-6, Jesus said Moses corrupted God's teaching about divorce

But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.

So, Moses faked part of the Torah, and Jesus, speaking on God's behalf, sets everybody straight. If Stephen can be stoned for it, why not Jesus?

I don't read that at all. Jesus is saying, not that Moses is wrong, let alone that he faked anything. He is saying, Moses made concessions to take account of human weakness. I am saying don't follow this. It's like him saying, the Law says an eye for an eye, but I say that it is more moral not to hold to the rigour of that law, valid though it may be. It's not a rejection of Mosaic law at all. The addition of vv 10-12 about divorce is usually challenged because it makes no sense. Women were not permitted to divorce their husbands. This is often invoked as an example of Mark's ignorance of Jewish laws.

We all follow our speech patterns. I make no secret of my sympathy with probabilistic approaches to uncertain reasoning. In that perspective, certainty is the "limiting case" of uncertain leaning. What is certain, then, is also likely, as I and other probabilists speak.

I meant not that it was certain that Jesus of Nazareth existed, but that there was at least one preaching Jesus who died violently at the hands of the Romans. Ben Ananias. He was killed, says Josephus, by a Roman missile during the Siege of Jerusalem.

 

[IanS]

You forget the caveat To IanS there's a uniformly false integral entity called "The Bible" which is not accessible to critical analysis and cannot be used in any way as a source of possible information. I don't know whether IanS agrees with dejudge that the NT is a conscious fiction concocted centuries later, and I'd like to have his opinion on this.

Well just to answer your question first - of course I have no idea whether the bible was created as conscious fiction (whether centuries later, or at any time), and I don't know if there is any evidence which shows that to be either likely or unlikely ... perhaps dejudge has posted evidence which he thinks shows that be the case, but I have not read the details, or checked the details, of what he may have posted as evidence for anything like that.

But just because the bible stories are indeed largely fictional, that does not mean in itself that it could only be a deliberately created attempt at deception. For example, it's certainly true that all religions have been spread by people who genuinely believed that the gods, messiahs, devils, angels, demons, miracles etc were actually literally true - many of them clearly believed they had personally witnessed such things, repeatedly! And it’s also certainly true that legends like that, inc. religious legends, can arise/begin simply from the numerous superstitious uneducated beliefs that millions of people have held since long before Jesus and right up to the present day.

In the case of the NT-bible stories of Jesus, it is perfectly clear that the beliefs arose from what the preachers believed to have been the correct understanding of divine revealed truth in their ancient OT. Paul actually says that was his source, and authors like Randel Helms have shown numerous examples of how the gospel writers were taking their stories from the books of the OT.

That is not necessarily a deliberate fabrication. Those people really believed that their OT prophecies were divine revealed truth from God.

But as far as the credibility and reliability of the biblical writing is concerned as evidence of it’s claims of Jesus - evidence of that type has already been the subject of very extensive and precise legal ruling. And it is ruled completely inadmissible to the point of being entirely unfit even to be placed before the consideration of any jury. For the precise reason that it is so unreliable as to risk seriously misleading the jury into all sorts of false conclusions and entirely mistaken decisions.

It needs something far better than the anonymous hearsay writing of a bible packed with proven fiction (and known to have been taking it’s Jesus stories from the OT), if you want to claim something as credible reliable evidence of a living Jesus.

That’s not to say he could never have existed. He might have done (as I have said at least 50 times here now). But if he did then any such conclusion cannot honestly be drawn from evidence as completely flawed and legally unacceptable as the bible.

 

[pakeha]

...Maybe it struck Mark as incongruous that the Romans would allow a DIY nuisance removal. Obviously, that didn't bother some later writer, whoever came up with the adultress pericope, but the Roman Passion (even though the Jews were responsible) was apparently well established by then. ...
If we are looking at Acts, then we might flip ahead a few pages to the trial and execution of Stephen, for blaspheming Moses and God. According to Mark 10:5-6, Jesus said Moses corrupted God's teaching about divorce

But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.

So, Moses faked part of the Torah, and Jesus, speaking on God's behalf, sets everybody straight. If Stephen can be stoned for it, why not Jesus?

So far, nobody exploring the hypothesis has offered the Talmud in evidence. In other posts, you have offered incongruity as a touchstone of truth. Following pakeha, I find an incongruity here, and I'd like to see what rubs on it. ...

A good starting point might be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism
" According to the Talmud forty years before the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE (i.e. in 30 CE) the Sanhedrin effectively abolished capital punishment.[citation needed]"

Alas, citation needed.
Still, the definitions of the various crimes and their punishments are most illuminating.*
I'm off to work and will be hard put not to ponder stoning techniques when confronted with elements associated with the job at hand.


*Who knew what stoning actually entailed? Or burning?

 

[Foster Zygote]

I don't know if tsig is right about Foster Zygote's implication, but there was a thread a while ago quite specifically about that.
It's one thing to state that the evidence for a historical Jesus is better than for a mythical one, but comparing it with evolution vs. creationism is another, very silly, thing.

As I clarified in post #2690, I was not saying that the case for an historical Jesus is like the case for evolution by natural selection. I was saying that dejudge's tactic of simply ignoring the case for an historical Jesus and declaring that the entire idea was "dead" despite the disagreement with the vast majority of experts, reminds me of the way creationists do the same thing regarding evolution.

 

[pakeha]

...The addition of vv 10-12 about divorce is usually challenged because it makes no sense. Women were not permitted to divorce their husbands. This is often invoked as an example of Mark's ignorance of Jewish laws. I meant not that it was certain that Jesus of Nazareth existed, but that there was at least one preaching Jesus who died violently at the hands of the Romans. Ben Ananias. He was killed, says Josephus, by a Roman missile during the Siege of Jerusalem.

Not to quibble, Craig B, but we've been over the women's divorcement question on another thread and we found that yes, it was permitted.

ETA
http://www.mentaldivorce.com/mdrstudies/DivorcesByJewishWomen.htm

 

[The Norseman]

As I clarified in post #2690, I was not saying that the case for an historical Jesus is like the case for evolution by natural selection. I was saying that dejudge's tactic of simply ignoring the case for an historical Jesus and declaring that the entire idea was "dead" despite the disagreement with the vast majority of experts, reminds me of the way creationists do the same thing regarding evolution.

Since the term has been misused quite a bit in these types of threads, you might understand how what you wrote could have been misconstrued.

I will leave my post the way it is, but I will withdraw any statement which has any negative connotation to what you said.

 

[eight bits]

Craig

It's like him saying, the Law says an eye for an eye, but I say that it is more moral not to hold to the rigour of that law, valid though it may be.

The question of punishments is different from the question of norms. There are reasons to think that maximum punishments are the convention throughout. As to norms, the point of written law is that it can be taken literally (that is what the adverb means, after all). So, I can't find where it says "The ideal is X, and X is God's actual commandment, but you may live with Y instead, as if it were God's commendment, because rather than expecting you to make sacrifices for the privilege of being his chosen people, God wouldn't dream of asking you to do something which you might find burdensome." What I can find is "Y is the law," accompanied by discussion of how much better Israelites are than the folks who don't keep God's Law.

Compare Paul - he can distinguish between what he thinks is ideal in the way of sex, and what concessions Paul makes to human weakness. That is not remotely like what Jesus is depicted saying about Moses.

That there is some teaching about divorce from Jesus which differs from Torah is multiply attested. You've beaten me about the head enough with that criterion. There is no doubt that it's a fine line between the legitimate rabbinical function of interpreting the scriptures, and the blasphemous dictation of new law based on the speaker's personal knowledge of God's will. It suffices that somebody with a following thought Jesus crossed the line. That you could have defended Jesus is great, and your defense has its merits, but it's not the issue.