Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

Arrant nonsense. Whether there was a historical Jesus or not, that is quite absurd. Most scholars believe in the existence of such a person, and to suggest that they do so because they have made up the evidence places your arguments squarely in the Loony Tunes area of Conspiracy Theory.

Belief does not require evidence.

You believe there was an HJ and you don't have any evidence.

Again, where is the survey that shows "most scholars" believe in the existence of an HJ?

When was the survey conducted?

In which country was it carried out?

How many Scholars in the survey worship Jesus as their Lord and Savior?

How many Scholars are theologians in the survey?

You have no data and is merely repeating unsubstantiated claims.

 

[maximara]

Arrant nonsense. Whether there was a historical Jesus or not, that is quite absurd. Most scholars believe in the existence of such a person, and to suggest that they do so because they have made up the evidence places your arguments squarely in the Loony Tunes area of Conspiracy Theory.

There is a reason Carl Sagan put Arguments from authority (which the highlighted is) as one of the things to look out for in his Baloney Detection Kit along with ad hominem, observational selection, inconsistency, non sequitur, excluded middle aka false dichotomy, straw man, and suppressed evidence all of which appear to some degree on both sides of the HJ-MJ debate (which is itself an excluded middle argument as shown over 100 years ago by Resmburg and reiterated in this century by Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall).


Marshall is one of the few HJers to acknowledge that the whole HJ issue is a spectrum ranging from Jesus didn't exist as a human being on one side to the Gospels are totally accurate historical documents on the other. He also is one of the few HJers to acknowledge the same thing Remsburg did from Strauss a 100 years previously--that "historical" itself has a range and that Jesus the man may be historical but the Gospel account may not be (essentially Resmburg's "a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false").

Price himself used Marshall's first definition of historical (Jesus existed as a flesh and blood man as opposed to being a fictional creation like King Lear or Dr Who) when he said "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) but per Robertson's definition of 1900 it would also be a Christ myth theory because such a historical Jesus would not have "taught as reported in the Gospels" (ie in the 1st century CE) nor "was put to death in the circumstances there recorded" (ie under the reign of Pontius Pilate)

This does bring up a question. Why as documented from the 4th century on did the Jewish community believe Jesus lived c100 BC and was stoned to death under Alexander Jannaeus? The HJ community has to my knowledge yet come up with a sensible or logical reason for this especially if Jesus existence in the 1st century CE was a well documented fact as is often claimed.

 

[IanS]

Arrant nonsense. Whether there was a historical Jesus or not, that is quite absurd. Most scholars believe in the existence of such a person, and to suggest that they do so because they have made up the evidence places your arguments squarely in the Loony Tunes area of Conspiracy Theory.

Bible scholars such as those named earlier in these threads certainly do believe it (Ehrman, Crossan, Sanders, Pagels, Huddleston, Metzger, William Lane Craig, Mark Goodacre, Greg Boyd etc.). But as has been repeatedly shown here, most of those NT bible scholars come from younger backgrounds of highly devout religious belief, which eventually led them into full time religious studies and then into their eventual roles teaching bible studies either in university NT-bible studies dept’s or else in theological colleges and the like.

Some, like Ehrman seem to have lost their belief in a literal God, if not in Jesus. Others may, or may not, still be religious to various unknown extents. But almost all of them seem to have spent their entire adult lives absolutely drowning in all manner of NT biblical studies, religious courses, periods in the priesthood, and studying religious belief in theological institutes etc.

So these are by no means typical neutral university academics of the sort that you find in properly objective fields such as core sciences. They are invariably people with a vast personal background in religious belief and/or lifelong interest in the entirely religious subject of Jesus and Christianity (for some reason).

Making an appeal to the authority of people like Bart Ehrman or Dominic Crossan as experts who swear Jesus certainly existed on the basis of believing that Paul met his brother and that the crucifixion must have happened because an apparently real Roman official of the time named Pilate was originally first mentioned in, what if iirc, was one of the “fake” Pauline Letters, is not by any stretch of any properly educated imagination the same as appealing to the authority of world famous scientists on scientific issues …

…. if you ask Stephen Hawking to justify Quantum Theory or Relativity, then he will give you ten thousand pages of mathematical proofs and 10,000 more of very precise experimental confirmation, all of which has been tested, checked and rechecked literally millions of times the world over by thousands of independent scientists … but if you ask any of those bible scholars to give you the evidence which convinces them of Jesus, all you get is the deeply unsatisfactory offering of bible passages saying that Paul met James, and Paul named Pontius Pilate, and Tacitus and Josephus mentioned Jesus, etc.

 

[Craig B]

…. if you ask Stephen Hawking to justify Quantum Theory or Relativity, then he will give you ten thousand pages of mathematical proofs and 10,000 more of very precise experimental confirmation, all of which has been tested, checked and rechecked literally millions of times the world over by thousands of independent scientists … but if you ask any of those bible scholars to give you the evidence which convinces them of Jesus, all you get is the deeply unsatisfactory offering of bible passages saying that Paul met James, and Paul named Pontius Pilate, and Tacitus and Josephus mentioned Jesus, etc.

That's right. That's the difference. Spot on!

 

[Foster Zygote]

You've got to be joking.

Why have I got to be joking?

It is people who were once Fundies or Christians and still maintain faith and belief in the NT as a source of history who retain the same absolutist manner of thinking---either there was an HJ or nobody else existed--not even Alexander the Great.

You can't even understand the basic analogy. Your argument is that people made up mythology about Jesus, including that he walked on water, and that this is evidence that Jesus never existed. Yet the fact that people made up stories about historical figures like Alexander demonstrates that your argument is completely wrong. The examples of impossible events ascribed to the lives of known people like Alexander and Joseph Smith isn't meant to prove that Jesus existed, but rather to prove that your argument that he didn't is not valid. If you ever learn to think critically you will realize this.

And saying that an historical Jesus is the most likely available explanation for the origin of Christianity is not absolutist thinking. It is not a faith based idea because it is always open to revision should new evidence turn up.

It is most bizarre when supposed atheists, a minority , claim the "vast majority" of Scholars support the argument for HJ and do so without any supporting data.

Except that they do have supporting data. But that data doesn't fit with your predetermined dogma that Jesus cannot have existed, so you simply deny it like a creationist ignoring the supporting data for abiogenesis.

And regarding Jesus as having been a rather ordinary, if unusually deluded, human being is in no way inconsistent with atheism. The fact that you keep trying to link the idea that Jesus existed as a completely non-supernatural human being to the religious beliefs held by modern Christians only serves to demonstrate that you refuse to even consider the former idea because you simply don't want Jesus to have ever existed. You resent your former faith so much that you've decided that Jesus must not have existed in any form because this conclusion appeals to you emotionally. That is why we've commented that you seem to have abandoned your religious beliefs, but not your religious way of thinking.

HJers who now claim to be Ex-fundies and Ex-Christians and still use the Bible as a source of history for their multiple versions of a crucified criminal Jesus appear to have weak faith.

And there you go again, implying that the Bible must either be rejected as completely false, or accepted as completely true. That is a grossly ignorant thing to say. Secular scholars, whether they used to be Christians, never were Christians, or retain Christian beliefs but keep them separate from their scholarly work, don't make use of faith. They go where the evidence leads and keep open minds about new evidence.

Why have you isolated yourself from the fundies who helped to propagate the "good news" that Jesus did exist?

Because I no longer think that Jesus was a magical being sent to redeem people from their sins and bring everlasting life. Jesus was just as deluded as Vernon Wayne Howell or Jim Jones, and he can't listen to anyones prayers or intercede in their affairs because he's as dead as they come.

So what about you? What changed your mind?

After all Fundie and Christian Scholars are a part of the supposed "vast majority".

Do you have the data about Fundies and Christian Scholars?

Are the vast majority of HJers Fundies and Christians?

It is expected that Christian and Fundi Scholars support the HJ dogma.

You are the one who argues that the Jesus story is an embellishment but accept parts of it.

Yet you are disassociating yourself from the fundamentalists even though they fully agree with the parts you accept.

That's hysterical, dejudge. Even though I flat out said that I could see it coming from a mile off, you just left that part out and proceeded to do just what I'd said you'd do.

"I can see where this is going a mile off. But trying to discredit secular opinion that Jesus was just another deluded preacher by implying that this is the same as belief that he is God, is about as childishly silly as saying that someone who believes that a raccoon most likely tore into the trash cans over night is no different from someone who is certain that it was Bigfoot, simply because they both believe that an animal did it."

And there you go, doing exactly that.

 

[Craig B]

There is a reason Carl Sagan put Arguments from authority (which the highlighted is) as one of the things to look out for in his Baloney Detection Kit along with ad hominem, observational selection, inconsistency, non sequitur, excluded middle aka false dichotomy, straw man, and suppressed evidence

My "appeal to authority" (which you couldn't have read with any care) was juxtaposed to the assertion, made by yourself, that

The evidence for a historical Jesus is poor to laughable bad; one could argue it is on par with the evidence presented by Bermuda Triangle supporters who when they aren't distorting events aren't above making up disappearances out of whole cloth (Kusche, Lawrence David (1975) The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved)

What I was arguing is that the majority of scholars don't resemble the Bermuda Triangle nutters? Or do you really think they do?

 

[dejudge]

Why have I got to be joking?


You can't even understand the basic analogy. Your argument is that people made up mythology about Jesus, including that he walked on water, and that this is evidence that Jesus never existed.

My fundamental argument is that you have no evidence for your HJ [the assumed obscure criminal]. My argument is that there is an ON-GOING Search for HJ for hundreds of years without success and that this is the THIRD attempt to find an HJ.

If there was an established HJ there would be no need for a Quest lasting hundreds of years.

Please, just go and help find evidence your assumed obscure dead criminal.

You may be lucky.

Your obscure dead criminal is NOT Plausible without evidence--that is my argument.

 

[IanS]

…. if you ask Stephen Hawking to justify Quantum Theory or Relativity, then he will give you ten thousand pages of mathematical proofs and 10,000 more of very precise experimental confirmation, all of which has been tested, checked and rechecked literally millions of times the world over by thousands of independent scientists … but if you ask any of those bible scholars to give you the evidence which convinces them of Jesus, all you get is the deeply unsatisfactory offering of bible passages saying that Paul met James, and Paul named Pontius Pilate, and Tacitus and Josephus mentioned Jesus, etc.

That's right. That's the difference. Spot on!

Good. So we agree that these bible scholars are not the sort of typical academics to whom you might very reasonably appeal (as you would for example to Hawking and countless others, in many research fields), because in the case of the bible scholars we agree that what they are calling their most convincing evidence, is “deeply unsatisfactory” …

… so why do you keep appealing to these people, as if they were genuinely the sort of proper academic authorities that research scientists are?

In fact, if we added up all the claims that have been offered in these various HJ threads as support for belief in a HJ, I expect that by far the most often cited reason to believe would be that same appeal to the authority of bible scholars who, as I said above (and as we have shown many times by quoting typical academic backgrounds etc), have often spent their entire lives absolutely drowning in religious belief and religious studies (which hardly makes these people neutral objective academics of the sort one finds in most other university departments).

It might be a different matter if the appeal to these people could quote any credible evidence for what these bible scholars say, but the best they can do is apparently to claim that, in the end, they believe what it says in the bible, and without any credible independent external confirmation of anyone ever knowing Jesus at all.

Appeal to authorities like that is a dead give-away for a HJ case devoid of any real evidential content.

 

[Belz...]

Your argument is that people made up mythology about Jesus, including that he walked on water, and that this is evidence that Jesus never existed. Yet the fact that people made up stories about historical figures like Alexander demonstrates that your argument is completely wrong.

Haven't we been trying to explain this to Dejudge for months now ?

 

[Craig B]

Good. So we agree that these bible scholars are not the sort of typical academics to whom you might very reasonably appeal (as you would for example to Hawking and countless others, in many research fields), because in the case of the bible scholars we agree that what they are calling their most convincing evidence, is “deeply unsatisfactory” …

… so why do you keep appealing to these people, as if they were genuinely the sort of proper academic authorities that research scientists are?

No, I don't agree with anything of the kind, and I think you know it. I was being ironic. That is my only possible response to the proposition that academics who study ancient texts to elucidate, if possible, the obscure origins of religious movements, are less genuine authorities than nuclear physicists because their findings are less certain. This is such a ridiculous idea that it's hard to believe you're being serious.

 

[maximara]

My "appeal to authority" (which you couldn't have read with any care) was juxtaposed to the assertion, made by yourself, that What I was arguing is that the majority of scholars don't resemble the Bermuda Triangle nutters? Or do you really think they do?

I take it you have never watched the NOVA/Horizon episode The Case of the Bermuda Triangle because it showed how the whole thing came about. In a nutshell it could be traced to one work with later writers simply trusted what that writer wrote and adding to and-or deleting disappearances.

We can show that the Christians of c180 clear into the 4th century were prone to make theological claims that even the barest amount of research would have shown to be nonsense.

Irenaeus claiming Jesus was 50+ years old when he was crucified and this happened under Herod the king of the Jews (ie Herod Agrippa I) during the reign of Claudius Caesar (ie 42-44 CE) is case in point.

Epiphanius stating that "Until he (Jesus) came the rulers were anointed priests, but after his birth in Bethlehem of Judea the order ended and was altered in the time of Alexander (Jannaeus), a ruler of priestly and kingly stock." while elsewhere firmly putting Jesus in the 1st century CE is another.

Then you have modern HJers referring to the 5000 Greek manuscripts which is not as it claimed. Or Suetonius comment about Chrestus being that of Jesus, or Mara Bar-Serapion, or the crowning Jewels of HJer insanity of Julius Africanus and Thallus (167th Olympiad? That doesn't fit; let's claim 217th Olympiad because Eusebius screwed up his number translations That darkness in the Gospels must have occurred ) Eddy-Boyd comment about this is "We have a probable confirmation that an unusual darkness came over the earth when Jesus was crucified" (Jesus Legend pg 198)

A third hand source that you have to fudge the dates it supposedly covers to even have it fit and it is probable confirmation probable confirmation that an unusual darkness came over the earth when Jesus was crucified THAT NO ONE ELSE SEES?! Not the Chinese, not the Japanese, not any Roman who wrote about astronomy, etc. How can any scholar say this? It is insane and this is the quality of the HRer argument in nutshell.


Please tell me O Wise One how is that NOT like the distorting events and-or making up disappearances out of whole cloth nonsense seen with the Bermuda Triangle supporters?

 

[Craig B]

IThat darkness in the Gospels must have occurred ) Eddy-Boyd comment about this is "We have a probable confirmation that an unusual darkness came over the earth when Jesus was crucified" (Jesus Legend pg 198)

A third hand source that you have to fudge the dates it supposedly covers to even have it fit and it is probable confirmation probable confirmation that an unusual darkness came over the earth when Jesus was crucified even NO ONE ELSE SEES?! Not the Chinese, not the Japanese, not any Roman who wrote about astronomy, etc. How can any scholar say this? It is insane and this is the quality of the HRer argument in nutshell.

Please tell me O Wise One how is that NOT like the distorting events and-or making up disappearances out of whole cloth nonsense seen with the Bermuda Triangle supporters?

So, O Silly One, you're stating that the consensus of modern scholarship that there was a historical Jesus entails belief in the darkness at the time of Jesus' execution, and therefore belief in a historical Jesus is insane.

You are stating that the majority of these scholars accept this story, and that they are therefore the same as Bermuda Triangle nut cases. Do the consensus scholars also accept the story of the holy people getting out of their tombs and being seen wandering around Jerusalem on that occasion too? That would prove they're completely bananas.

 

[maximara]

So, O Silly One, you're stating that the consensus of modern scholarship that there was a historical Jesus entails belief in the darkness at the time of Jesus' execution, and therefore belief in a historical Jesus is insane.

You are stating that the majority of these scholars accept this story, and that they are therefore the same as Bermuda Triangle nut cases. Do the consensus scholars also accept the story of the holy people getting out of their tombs and being seen wandering around Jerusalem on that occasion too? That would prove they're completely bananas.

"This would remain uncontested if it were not for a single reference to Thallus regarding an event long after that time: namely, the darkness at the death of Christ. Since this event must have occurred in the 1st century AD, and no doubt sometime between 28 and 38 AD, there are two possibilities: either the Armenian text is referring to a different work, or the date has been corrupted. Virtually every scholar to date has opted for the latter and made efforts to conjecture the original date--the only two plausible (though still unlikely) options are the 207th Olympiad (which spans 49-52 AD) and the 217th Olympiad (which spans 89-92 AD)." (Carrier, Richard (1999) Thallus: An Analysis)

"But this passage must be referring to the same Histories cited by Africanus, since if Thallus had written other books on chronology or history the reference in Eusebius would have been more specific (that he just says ‘the three volumes of Thallus’ means he was certain no one would be confused as to which treatise was meant,or which Thallus), and Africanus says he found the reference to an event at the time of Christ in the third volume of Thallus, which perfectly tsa three volume work that concluded its timeline in the first (or second)century. So it seems most likely that the Armenian text has become corrupted, and the concluding date was something other than 109 BCE. Indeed that is what most scholars have concluded." (Carrier, Richard "Thallus and the Darkness at Christ's Death" Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 8 (2011–12) 185-91)

Twice (and the second is peer reviewed) Carrier states that "virtually every scholar" and "most scholars" fudge the date of Thallus so they can use it to show an event in the Gospels is historical.

If HJ scholars were simply trying to show that was a 1st century preacher named Jesus around whom a mythical story grew around they wouldn't need to fudge the date range of Thallus but we are told that "most scholars" if not "virtually every scholar" does this. The only reason to use Thallus is if one is trying to prove the MYTHICAL Gospel story of Jesus is true.

Again o Wise one how is the use of Thallus NOT like what has been done by Bermuda Triangle supporters? And since Thallus from what we are told does NOT mention an undead jamboree don't waste our time with that nonsense...stick to the supposed three hour eclipse.

 

[Craig B]

Twice (and the second is peer reviewed) Carrier states that "virtually every scholar" and "most scholars" fudge the date of Thallus so they can use it to show an event in the Gospels is historical.

Again o Wise one how is the use of Thallus NOT like what has been done by Bermuda Triangle supporters? And since Thallus from what we are told does NOT mention an undead jamboree don't waste our time with that nonsense...stick to the supposed three hour eclipse.

You are stating that the consensus of scholarship fudges the date of Thallus in order to use his work as a historical witness to Jesus, and this entails their acceptance of the darkness story. Also, that this propensity of consensus scholarship is attested by the authority of none other than Carrier, moreover in a peer-reviewed work, no less. All this indicates that the majority of modern scholars in this field are nut cases like the Bermuda Triangle people.

OK, I'll look into that. I'll try to find some spare time, perhaps after I attend the Sunday service in the Church of Christ-Believing Atheists.

 

[maximara]

No one here is an apologist.

Yes there are apologists here:

apologist: a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial (Oxford dictionary)

By the Oxford dictionary we ALL are apologists...even the MJers.

Of course you could claim that the HJ are more apologist then the MJ because they keep apologizing for the horrid state of their evidence.

 

[Craig B]

Of course you could claim that the HJ are more apologist then the MJ because they keep apologizing for the horrid state of their evidence.

The MJers, it has to be admitted, don't have the decency to offer apologies for the absence of evidence for things like a pre-existing Christ myth about a crucifixion in the sub lunar non-earthly domain, or the circumstances and perpetrators of the alleged second century forgery of the entire NT.

 

[pakeha]

I would say that I'm touchier than those two, although those two, and Maximara, are clearly the touchiest of those on the MJ side. I just see this myther woo as the canary in the mine signaling the collapse of the kind of general education that flowered in the wake of the Enlightenment. The 19th and 20th centuries saw the growing expansion of access to education for everyone. It put genuine social equality within closer grasp, at least, although not yet attained. In addition, the nature of all scientific and historic and medical research that was the source of the educational curriculum of those two centuries became more rigorous alongside the expansion of education itself. Now, the know-nothings, like the myther quacks, that are emerging as the result of higher education being put further and further out of reach financially in recent decades signal the first symptom of this serious two-pronged decline.

It's a fatal circle: Financially, higher education gets more and more out of reach resulting in more and more youngsters growing up without the tools for higher-paying positions. Families attached to these know-nothings are then drawn down in this financial devolution to less and less access to higher education. The increasingly less access to higher education there is, the more whole families' access to higher education and higher paying jobs is devolved even further, until finally we're right back to Mediaeval times with only an elite of an elite being able to read and write. I see the process accelerating today rather than staying in place.

Mytherism is one alarming symptom of this regression, and it is spreading rapidly thanks to the web.

Eventually, even more important things than Jesus the rabbi, crucial things like the Holocaust and global climate change, will be "questioned" for much more sinister and underhanded motives than anything behind mytherism, driven by an accurate perception that the web demographic is now made up of easy suckers for quackery, having been "field-tested" with more benign but still noxious nostrums like Jesus mytherism, moon hoaxism and trvtherism.

Stone

No. Accept an MJ, and civilization will eventually collapse, because the woo-think behind MJ will make matters ripe for the further acceptance of those more crucial and destructive nostrums like Holocaust denial, evolution denial, etc.

Education itself is being dumped on with such nostrums, and once education itself is scoffed at as elitist and sissy and unnecessary by the 99% who are socially engineered to be militantly ignorant and macho, the 1% with a decent education who are deliberately devolving your level of education with malicious intent will laugh at you under their sleeves all the way to the bank, as the 99% become more and more suggestible and more and more cretinous and zombie-like, which is the 1%'s game plan. Who knows? Mytherism may be their field test to raise the suggestibility of the increasingly ignorant for even more important lies like climate denial.

Clearer now? But of course, such advanced indoctrination in the macho and the proudly ignorant does not permit one to wake up and smell the coffee.

Stone

Those were lovely, Stone.
Are you envisioning a world where men don't wear black tie to the opera or something more along these lines?

 

[Craig B]

"So it seems most likely that the Armenian text has become corrupted, and the concluding date was something other than 109 BCE. Indeed that is what most scholars have concluded."

Why stop there? Here are the very next words:

However, it is typically claimed that the most likely correction to the text brings us a closing date at the 207th Olympiad, or 52 Ce, but there is no solid basis for this conclusion. That is simply one suggestion made by one textual critic (and that two hundred years ago).

 

[David Mo]

Let's be truthful here. The evidence for a historical Jesus is poor to laughable bad; one could argue it is on par with the evidence presented by Bermuda Triangle supporters who when they aren't distorting events aren't above making up disappearances out of whole cloth (Kusche, Lawrence David (1975) The Bermuda Triangle Mystery: Solved)

To match the Bermuda Triangle with Jesus' existence is fallacious.

The Bermuda Triangle is a supernatural or mysterious event explained (?) with supernatural facts by non qualified experts.
Jesus' existence is a natural event explained with natural arguments by scholars.

The Jesus' existence issue is theoretically independent of beliefs in supernatural events. Not so the belief in the Bermuda Triangle. Some agnostic and atheistic scholars believe in the Jesus' existence and don't believe in miracles "made by Jesus". No sceptic believes in the Bermuda Miracle. The main current of Christian hermeneutics puts aside the miracles when discussing the existence of Jesus. The believers in the Bermuda triangle can not elude mysterious events.

We may consider that there is no reason to think that Jesus actually existed; we may consider that the scholars that defend the existence of Jesus are usually biased by their religious inclinations. But this doesn't legitimate the absurd comparison (probably also biased) between the Bermuda Triangle and Jesus' existence.

If we affirm that there is no reason to think that Jesus actually existed we are discussing if there is any reason or evidence to consider that a Jewish preacher called Jesus existed.

If we affirm that the scholars that defend the existence of Jesus are usually biased by their religious inclinations we are discussing if the consensus about the existence of Jesus is a valuable indication.

I consider these are independent questions, so my answer to them is different. Yes, there is some indication that Jesus existed. No, the biblical consensus is not an indication.

 

[Belz...]

By the Oxford dictionary we ALL are apologists...even the MJers.

So maybe we shouldn't use the term, then.

Of course you could claim that the HJ are more apologist then the MJ because they keep apologizing for the horrid state of their evidence.

As opposed to no evidence at all for MJ ?