Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
- Thread starter Nick227
- Start date
- Status
Robin Hood is IMHO a very poor example as we know, thanks to original records, that it was a common alias for people who were outlawed from 1228 all the way to 1439. As documented in the "Outlaw" episode of Terry Jones Medieval Lives there were no shortage of what can be best described as Medieval mobsters. No doubt some of these thugs knew archery.
Because these men were also useful to those in power to fight their wars and in some cases came from nobility they tended to get pardons from authorities and after they died a makeover regarding their actions. Based on that episode I would say the real Robin Hood was more likely to rob from the poor as he was from the the rich...easier pickings.
Thanks for that. Anyway, obviously there was no "real" Robin Hood; just people exploiting the mythical figure. I think the distinction between a mythical and a human physical origin remains clear and definable, particularly in the case of Jesus.
David Mo
Philosopher
Although the definition is a bit confusing is interesting because helps define the terms of debate in this forum. Some in this forum are maintaining the hard version of mythicism. I mean, Jesus would be an invention to justify an Egyptian, Hellenistic or Jewish belief (a "ghost"). Or, if you will, a Paul's invention in order to incarnate his spiritual heavenly Jesus. So I find more accurate this definition:
Mythicism is the belief that Jesus Christ never existed as a historical figure, but was derived from a group of mythical gods and demigods from Greek and Roman times.
It is this version which some of us are trying to rebut here. No one is maintaining that the Jesus of the Gospels is the historical Jesus. If that's mythicism, I'm mythicist. But I affirm the existence of a preacher who acted in Galilee in the first half of the first century and was executed by the Romans. Stop. And this is something that the mythicists don't see with good eyes. Those in this forum, at least.
David Mo
Philosopher
There is a difference between Robin Hood and Jesus. We know that "Robin Hood" is a plural name. There is some indications that "Jesus of Galilee" was a singular name. The "bandits" or jew resistants received a name individualized and we know it.
eight bits
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2012
- Messages
- 1,580
Craig B
Assume, then, that Paul and Mark would agree that Jesus never was or became God, and that for them there is a bright and shining line that defines Jesus' first exercise of the office of Messiah (which I would place shortly before his death, at the earliest). What was Jesus before then?
He was destined to be the Messiah, just as Paul was all his life destined to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul didn't know that before his christophany. Until Paul did know that about himself, he sensibly did things he later regretted. In Christian terms, Paul did not sin by his persecution (he was well-intended), but Paul did repent of some things he did in his pre-christophany life.
I think there was still room at mid-trajectory in the steep christological inflation (where I think Mark comes between Paul's christophany and John) for Jesus to have discovered his destiny only during his adulthood, parallel with Paul's discovery. That is, I posit a separate step of adult-onset ripening self-knowledge, before fully becoming what he eventually became.
Disaggregating events into steps is good storytelling. Moreover, in a church still dominated by adult converts, I think that kind of Jesus would resonate nicely. Soon enough, other problems became more urgent, especially Jesus' delay in returning, while the demographics came to include more people whose native religion was Christianity. ("I knew all about this at age four, but God's Gift is pushing forty and he's clueless?")
You and I are in general agreement about a steep progression in christology through the two generations from Paul's christophany to John. The theme of John the Baptist's ministry was this "metanoia" thing. If ever there was a poster child for metanoia, it is Paul, who undergoes frank enantiodromia, at least as regards his behavior towards The Way.
Assume, then, that Paul and Mark would agree that Jesus never was or became God, and that for them there is a bright and shining line that defines Jesus' first exercise of the office of Messiah (which I would place shortly before his death, at the earliest). What was Jesus before then?
He was destined to be the Messiah, just as Paul was all his life destined to be the Apostle to the Gentiles. Paul didn't know that before his christophany. Until Paul did know that about himself, he sensibly did things he later regretted. In Christian terms, Paul did not sin by his persecution (he was well-intended), but Paul did repent of some things he did in his pre-christophany life.
I think there was still room at mid-trajectory in the steep christological inflation (where I think Mark comes between Paul's christophany and John) for Jesus to have discovered his destiny only during his adulthood, parallel with Paul's discovery. That is, I posit a separate step of adult-onset ripening self-knowledge, before fully becoming what he eventually became.
Disaggregating events into steps is good storytelling. Moreover, in a church still dominated by adult converts, I think that kind of Jesus would resonate nicely. Soon enough, other problems became more urgent, especially Jesus' delay in returning, while the demographics came to include more people whose native religion was Christianity. ("I knew all about this at age four, but God's Gift is pushing forty and he's clueless?")
Sure. As I have said several times before, the gospels and Paul’s letters “could” have contained reliable evidence that the authors had obtained from informants who actually did witness things. But the reason I put it the way I did, was to emphasise that in fact none of those gospels or letters do produce any such evidence quoted from or otherwise reliably shown to have come from any other known individual who did actually have the evidence of Jesus first hand.
So all we are left with in any of the biblical writing, is evidence of the authors beliefs about other unknown people believing that yet other people called disciples had once known the evidence with their own eyes. And what they knew was that there was once a messiah who was supernatural and completely impossible. That is not credible or reliable evidence from any of those religious writers who, as I say, could have no evidence of their own, and who give no indication of anyone else who actually knew the evidence and told it to them either.
If they were not actually blood family bothers, then they were not really "brothers" at all, were they!
Apart from which, nobody who was supposed to have been a brother of Jesus, ever wrote to confirm that he was indeed a family brother of Jesus.
Instead, all we have (yet again) is later religious authors who wrote to say that other unknown people had once talked of brothers of the Lord, whatever that might have meant. But that cannot possibly be reliable or credible evidence of any of the authors who wrote such things, actually knowing if any of that was true in any sense at all.
Well first of all you do not need to find every word about Jesus in the OT. It is more than sufficient if you find more than a couple of such incidences, to conclude that this is not some mere coincidence and that in fact those gospel writers were using the OT as the source for their messiah beliefs. Paul's letters for example repeatedly stress that the OT was certainly the source for his Jesus beliefs.
But iirc, in fact the crucifixion story was very likely obtained by Paul from what Paul thought was OT prophecy, and we have been through that before several times. You don't need to find a word-for-word prediction saying Jesus will be crucified by Pilate. What seems to have happened is that Paul, and later the gospel writers, were searching in an OT of messiah prophecies which they all regarded as the most important thing that governed their every waking moment, for any passages which might have conceivably seemed to them to be refereeing in any obscure or "hidden" prophetic way to the coming of Gods promised messiah.
So what was happening, was apparently that individuals like Paul, Mark and Mathew, would find certain passages, or if not actually having written copies then they would come to believe from verbal accounts that certain passages said various things, whereby they could imagine that the passage, whatever it actually said and whoever or whatever it was actually originally referring to, could be interpreted by them (Paul, Mark, Mathew) as a coded or "hidden" meaning about the messiah who Paul came to believe was the Jesus figure named by Moses c.1000BC.
That might include not merely taking one complete sentence from one particular book of the OT, but actually taking bits of various different sentences from different books of the OT, and piecing the parts together to form what seemed to people like Paul, Mark, Mathew, to be the "revelation" of God’s true meaning in the coded messiah messages "hidden so long" in the OT.
That is irrelevant in a discussion of the existence of contacts of Jesus and sources and modes of transmission of information. Whether James was a blood brother or associate close enough to be described as a brother, we have reason to believe he was active up to the 60s. In either case he is a possible source of information, or vector of transmission, as are the "myriads" of "staunch supporters of the Law" he allegedly had at his beck and call.
Yes. I'm pretty sure Paul didn't live and work in a vacuum. He wrote letters to people who had heard that Jesus taught not to divorce.
How did they hear that?
Was Paul just adding on to something he had taught them already, but he forgot to mention the part about remarriage, so he put it in the letter instead?
You know the letter I mean.
Belz...
Fiend God
Of course it’s not irrelevant. It’s 100% relevant.
If the person (James) was not in fact a family brother, but only a brother in the sense of belief, then there is no reason at all why any such person should have ever known Jesus.
And nor can you invent personal acquaintances of Jesus by introducing talk of “transmission vectors … of … contacts sources and modes” lol.
You talk about James being “close enough to be described as a brother…”, well who was the person “James”? How do you know how close he was to Jesus if he was not actually his brother? And what evidence do you have that he had ever met Jesus at all?
And what do you mean by saying James “is a possible source of information”? Anyone named in the bible might have been a “possible” source of information. So the question is - what evidence do you have that this person “James” actually personally ever met Jesus?
If you think it's relevant I will argue the point.
A James is listed by Matthew and Mark as a brother of Jesus in a family context in which his parents are also alluded to. The James encountered by Paul is leader of a group which contains the other disciples and John and Peter. He can issue instructions, and make decisions at a council. He is able to warn Paul about myriads of supporters. He makes pronouncements founded upon scriptural exegesis. He sends people to inspect whether other people are observing dietary rules. People bring him financial contributions. He can require people to perform purification ceremonies in the Temple. Thus I can think of reasons why he might have been known to Jesus.
ETA He is referred to by name as a seer of the risen Jesus, in 1 Corinthians
seen of Cephas, then of the twelve [15:5]
seen of above five hundred brethren at once [15:6]
seen of James; then of all the apostles [15:7]
last of all he was seen of me (Paul),[15:8–9]
Last edited:
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
I disagree, Brainache. It seems to me there's a lot of gradation between the two most extreme points of view here.
And calling a forum discussion a debate hardly does the discussion justice. I've posted up, IIRC, my own POV on the subject.
Why should only the most extreme opinions be admitted in this thread?
Why don't HJ proponents admit their only evidence for an HJ is to be found in the NT texts and their arguments are based on a literary analysis of those texts?
It's good to know I wasn't the only who missed out on that.
Fail, DOC, once again.
DO you remember why?
If not, here's the link to the Babylonian Chronicle.
James is also often portrayed as the pro-Jewish leader of the early church, who was written out of history by the pro-Roman goyim as a kind of fundamentalist; they made their peace with Rome, and of course, Jerusalem itself was destroyed. Christianity became Graeco-Roman, and obfuscated its Jewish roots. Oy veh ist mir.
tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39,049
Did you skip all the posts about John Frum?
Given the trauma of the destruction of all they held sacred I see no reason why the Jews could not have told stories about a wonder working rabbi who triumphed over the Romans even their most condign punishment. After enough telling the fictional part gets lost and the stories are held as true.
No Greek myths or deliberate forging, just human nature doing what it does best, believing in pleasant tales instead of reality.
Pre existing myth that inspired someone to become Jesus.
Gospels actually describe a composite person of which Jesus is actually only a small part.
There are many options but those are the ones that come off the top of my head
The most powerful empire at the time tried to kill a supposed Messiah, if you believe the press they failed and he came back from the dead.
Sounds like Jesus 1 Romans 0, I'm not seeing any embarrassment?
Most Jews obviously knew he was a failure but then they knew the game plan. Did the gentiles?
tsig
a carbon based life-form
- Joined
- Nov 25, 2005
- Messages
- 39,049
Christians loved the idea, in fact, the idea is so powerful you're still in it's thrall.
- Status