Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

...Of course, there is no rule at all. Even in Galatians itself, Paul preaches that he had natural face-to-face meetings with other men on Earth, reached agreement about doctrine with those men, and preached to one of those men in Antioch. None of those events are in Jewish scriptures, either. The source of this preaching is recited in the preaching itself: Paul had meetings with natural men, where religious doctrine was discussed, argued about and sometimes agreed upon - in order for the doctrine discussed to find its place in Paul's later preaching.

When did "Paul" have meetings with natural men?

If you believe Paul then you must also know that Paul claimed he had a sighting of a resurrected Jesus.

Surely, you must have remembered that Paul claimed in his "OWN" Epistle he was seen of the resurrected Jesus and that he was a WITNESS of God that Jesus was raised from the dead.

You must remember that Paul claimed in his "OWN" Epistle that Jesus was a Spirit.

The Pauline Corpus is not corroborated in the NT itself and Paul's Jesus was the Last Adam--a Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45 KJV

And so it is written , The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:15 KJV

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up , if so be that the dead rise not.

1 Corinthians 15:8 KJV

And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

Whoever wrote the Epistles was a natural human being but their Jesus was NOT.

The Pauline Jesus is Ghost related--a Mythological character.

The Pauline Jesus must be a resurrected Ghost before there is Remission of Sins.

1 Corinthians 15:17 KJV

And if Christ be not raised , your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

Paul proves in his "OWN" Epistles that Ghost stories were extremely plausible to natural men in antiquity.

Romans 10:9 KJV

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved .

 

[maximara]

Perhaps. But not completely unfounded speculation. There is for example the Rylands fragment, usually dated to the time you have given. If it is genuine and contains words from gJohn, then the Synoptics are presumably earlier still. This is not certain of course, but it is not mere unfounded guessing.

I have on numerous times addressed the Rylands fragment:

Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ

(...)

Provenance - the dating of Paul, the Gospels, and Acts

When talking about the dates assigned to the Gospels one must keep the concept of provenance (the place of origin or earliest known history of something) in mind. No original texts of the Gospels exist, only copies and many of these copies are fragments. In the absence of reference to historical known events in the manuscript the art of paleographic dating is used for dating purposes. The problem is paleographic dating of papyri is complex and thanks to the continual accumulation of new evidence an ongoing process and dating can be influence by apparent references to passages in the work in documents of a known date range. In fact, paleographic dating is considered last resorts dating and at best has a 50 year range. (R)

(...)

Gospels

Rylands Library Papyrus P52 (125-c225) - fragment of John that could sit upon a credit card and contains no complete sentences, and only one complete word: kai (“and”). "What I have done is to show that any serious consideration of the window of possible dates for P52 must include dates in the later second and early third centuries. Thus, P52 cannot be used as evidence to silence other debates about the existence (or non-existence) of the Gospel of John in the first half of the second century." (R)

Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.

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Nongbr has shown that due to the limitations of paleographic dating the c125 date of Rylands Library Papyrus P52 is on par with a tarot deck reading or the results of Ouija board... ie unscientific crap. So can we dispense with the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 c125 CE BS date once and for all and accept it with the far more scientific 125-225 CE date?

 

[maximara]

This is a hypothesis. But it crashes with the argument of difficulty. If someone had invented a heavenly Jesus, be Paul or any other, the account would be more harmonious than actually is.

The fragmentary nature of John Frum's appearance (which gets worse the closer to 1940 you get) and a basic understanding of Greek and Roman mythology shows this idea is nonsense. By your logic since the 12 labors of Heracles are so harmonious in not only generalities but also in the details they must be historical myth.

Heck there is more harmony in the versions of the Isis-Osiris that have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs then there is in the Jesus story; are you saying that is a historical myth?! Sure you could claim that Isis and Osiris were real people with Osiris wearing green body paint made from copper oxide and Isis a weirdo who made out with her dead chopped up husband and throw out all the supernatural come back from the dead stuff but at the end of the day it is still a really silly idea.

Remember that by 180 it is thought there were as many as 30 different Gospels floating around. Many of these we only know of their contents from detractors so the "harmony" you speak of is the result of one sect of Christianity selecting 4 of 30+ Gospels that had the least conflicts with each other. And that is ignore the possibility that all those Gospels had one non historical source as their origin point.

Remember that modern day Israel in terms of area is 153rd out of 249 nations of the world (Vanuatu where John Frum come from is 162nd) with only 9 of the states of the United States smaller then that and the region Paul supposedly persecuted Christians is smaller still.

 

[Craig B]

The fragmentary nature of John Frum's appearance (which gets worse the closer to 1940 you get) shows this idea is nonsense.

No it doesn't. The example of the Tanna Cargo Cult can hardly be used as a definitive comparator with early Christianity. It is not manifestly nonsensical to postulate differences between these phenomena.

 

[dejudge]

Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.

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Nongbr has shown that due to the limitations of paleographic dating the c125 date of Rylands Library Papyrus P52 is on par with a tarot deck reading or the results of Ouija board... ie unscientific crap. So can we dispense with the Rylands Library Papyrus P52 c125 CE BS date once and for all and accept it with a 125-225 CE date?

We can also dispense of the unscientific crap for the Pauline Corpus once and for all.

People who are not even paleographers are dating the Pauline Corpus within a 5-10 year margin of error using copies of copies of copies and sources which themselves are in a worse condition than the Pauline Corpus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Epistle_of_Clement

Although traditionally attributed to Clement of Rome,[1] this view has been questioned by modern scholarship...

The earliest manuscript with the Anonymous "Clement" letter P 6 is dated around 350 CE.


There is simply no corroborative evidence at all the Pauline Corpus was known or already composed pre 70 CE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_46

Papyrus 46 (in the Gregory-Aland numbering), designated by siglum {P}46, is one of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts in Greek, written on papyrus, with its 'most probable date' between 175-225.[1]

.....As with all manuscripts dated solely by palaeography, the dating of {P}46 is uncertain. The first editor of parts of the papyrus, H. A. Sanders, proposed a date possibly as late as the second half of the 3rd century.[19] F. G. Kenyon, editor of the complete editio princeps, preferred a date in the first half of the 3rd century.[20] The manuscript is now sometimes dated to about 200.[21] Young Kyu Kim has argued for an exceptionally early date of c. 80.[22] Griffin critiqued and disputed Kim's dating,[1] placing the 'most probable date' between 175-225, with a '95% confidence interval' for a date between 150-250.[23]

 

[maximara]

So now we're up from evidence to proof ?

I ask again what proof have these scholars offered for these early dates?

 

[Craig B]

I Nongbr, Brent (2005) "The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel." Harvard Theological Review 98:24.

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Nongbr has shown that due to the limitations of paleographic dating the c125 date of Rylands Library Papyrus P52 is on par with a tarot deck reading or the results of Ouija board... ie unscientific crap ...

Got a link? I'll be fascinated to read the expressions about "ouija boards" and "crap" in the Harvard Theological Review.

 

[Belz...]

I ask again what proof have these scholars offered for these early dates?

I ask again so now we're up from evidence to proof ?

What the hell do you want, now ? What's proof, in this context ?

 

[IanS]

This is a hypothesis. But it crashes with the argument of difficulty. If someone had invented a heavenly Jesus, be Paul or any other, the account would be more harmonious than actually is. Beginning with the crucifixion and some other passages who speak about swords and fights, and so on, there are some screeches in the Gospels that contradict a personal invention.

It should be obvious to you that there is no necessity at all for “someone” (as if it had to be one particular individual) to “invent a heavenly Jesus”.

It does not need to a be a deliberately untruthful “invention” at all. And nor does it need to have been done by any particular one individual.

The likley explanation is perfectly obvious - by the time of Paul and the Gospel writers, they and every other Jew in that region were absolutely certain that the OT was ordained by God (prophecy of Gods’ actions etc.) and that the absolutely central pivotal element of the OT was the certainty that God would send a heavenly messiah to lead his faithful chosen Jewish people to success on earth and everlasting life in heaven.

Nobody needed to invent that in the first century. All of that was universally believed as literally certain since at least 500BC if not since c.1000BC from the time of Moses!

All that Paul did, and all that the later gospel writers did (quite likely just by extending what Paul had already preached and written), was to scour the OT (as they and everyone else had done all day long for centuries) to find whatever they thought could be interpreted (because much of the OT was deliberately written in obscure imprecise language of vague prophecy) as the believed true meaning of it's "hidden” messiah revelations.

Paul and later preachers did not need to “invent” their Jesus messiah beliefs. Instead they truly believed it was revealed to them by true understanding of the OT …. Paul actually says, that he believed God had blessed him with both a vision of the messiah (who he thought had died long before that vision) and also blessed him by revealing to Paul the true messiah meanings “hidden so long” in the scriptures ….

… Paul thought the words of the scriptures (whether he actually read the words himself, or whether he was told the believed words) meant that the messiah would be named Jesus (probably from the prophecy of Moses) and that the messiah would be rejected and put to death by his own people, but would then prove Gods salvation by rising from the dead on the third day as proof to the faithful that they too would be raised up by God unto heaven. Paul did not “invent” any of that … he thought that was the true hidden meaning in the scripture.

 

[dejudge]

All that Paul did, and all that the later gospel writers did (quite likely just by extending what Paul had already preached and written), was to scour the OT (as they and everyone else had done all day long for centuries) to find whatever they thought could be interpreted (because much of the OT was deliberately written in obscure imprecise language of vague prophecy) as the believed true meaning of it's "hidden” messiah revelations.

Paul must be the LATER preacher.

In the NT itself Paul claimed he persecuted those who PREACHED before him.

In Acts, the Apostles PREACHED about Jesus since the day of Pentecost.

In Acts Stephen was stoned to death for PREACHING about Jesus and Paul assented to his death.

Galatians 1:23 KJV

But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed .

Paul is the LATER Preacher.

Over 500 persons was seen of Jesus BEFORE Paul.

This implies that over 500 persons were potential preachers before Paul.

We must understand the chronology of Paul.

Paul was the Persecutor of the EARLIER Preachers in the NT itself.

When Paul became a Preacher there was NO Jesus on earth even if he did exist.

 

[maximara]

Got a link? I'll be fascinated to read the expressions about "ouija boards" and "crap" in the Harvard Theological Review.

He doesn't use those exact words but that is the general gist of his paper:

"This assessment is not, however, without problems. First, paleographic dating of papyri is never a simple matter (6), and because of the constant accumulation of new evidence, the dating of manuscripts—even more so than other aspects of our discipline—is an ongoing process. Second, as Smith's observation suggests, in early Christian writings there are few early quotations of and allusions to John, and even those few are highly questionable. Scholars were debating the nature of these alleged references to John in early Christian authors until the publication of P52 in 1935, when such debates, so scholars thought, had now become moot"

6. The assertion is commonplace. Paleography is a last resort for dating. See, e.g., Eric G. Turner, Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World (2d rev. ed.; London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1987) 19-23. We would also do well to remember the standard rule of thumb for precision in paleographic dating. Turner writes, "For book hands, a period of 50 years is the least acceptable spread of time" (ibid., 20).

[...]

"The closest parallels that Roberts presents are other literary texts that also lack firm dates." (Roberts is the name of the guy who first came up with the 130-150 CE date range ...in 1935)

Who else sees more than a little problem with that?

[...]

What emerges from this survey is nothing surprising to papyrologists: paleography is not the most effective method for dating texts, particularly those written in a literary hand (49) Roberts himself noted this point in his edition of P52 (50) The real problem is thus in the way scholars of the New Testament have used and abused papyrological evidence. [...] As it stands now, the papyrological evidence should take a second place to other forms of evidence in addressing debates about the dating of the Fourth Gospel."

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Let's see.

Paleography is a last resort for dating with a period of 50 years as the least acceptable spread of time under the best of conditions ie several pages worth of work to study. NOT FRAGMENTS SMALLER THEN A MODERN CREDIT CARD!

The c125 date comes from 1935 in a field whose dating methodology is an ongoing process ie there is some 70+ years of advancements and changes that are being ignored in using this date.

The original dating involved the use of manuscripts whose own dates were uncertain.

The guy who came up with this date admitted that "paleography is not the most effective method for dating texts".

If promoting the c125 CE date that thanks to 70+ years of changes and advances in the paleography field is likely no longer valid and that used manuscripts whose own dates were estimates is not the equivalent of using a tarot deck or an Ouija board and ignoring these same changes and advances in promoting said date doesn't amount to unscientific crap I don't know what does.

 

[maximara]

I ask again so now we're up from evidence to proof ?

What the hell do you want, now ? What's proof, in this context ?

Quit dodging the question, Belz.

WHAT AND WHERE IS THE PROOF FOR THESE EARLY DATES FOR THE GOSPELS?

Give us something work with such as a scholarly paper detailing the methodology and-or even logic behind these dates. Note I said detailing the methodology and-or even logic not some vague appeal to authority like 'most scholars give this date' nonsense.

If these scholars can't provide methodology and-or even logic then these dates are Kusche's parrots Ie "The burden of proof should be on the people who make these statements, to show where they got their information from, to see if their conclusions and interpretations are valid, and if they have left anything out."

 

[IanS]

Paul must be the LATER preacher.

In the NT itself Paul claimed he persecuted those who PREACHED before him.

In Acts, the Apostles PREACHED about Jesus since the day of Pentecost.

In Acts Stephen was stoned to death for PREACHING about Jesus and Paul assented to his death.

Galatians 1:23 KJV

Paul is the LATER Preacher.

Over 500 persons was seen of Jesus BEFORE Paul.

This implies that over 500 persons were potential preachers before Paul.

We must understand the chronology of Paul.

Paul was the Persecutor of the EARLIER Preachers in the NT itself.

When Paul became a Preacher there was NO Jesus on earth even if he did exist.

OK, sure ... I am not going to argue that Paul's writing is any earlier than you think it is.

What I am saying above to David is that if we go along with his belief and almost everyone's belief, that Paul’s letters originally date from as early as circa.55AD-65AD, then any later gospel writers could obviously have been building on Paul’s ideas, but in any case ...

... afaik. the earliest relatively complete a readable copies of the canonical gospels actually date most likely from the 4th-6th century and later ... and I afaik, nobody is saying that Paul's writing is actually later than 4th-6th century onwards.

Plus ... I agree with Max, when he says (I think this is what he says) that all of those estimated dates for early NT biblical writing are highly suspect and likely to be subject all sorts of over-optimism, errors and mistakes. Such that, it would not surprise me if in fact almost all of it is some centuries later than the dates generally accepted by bible scholars, theologians and Christians in general.

 

[Belz...]

Quit dodging the question, Belz.

I'm not dodging, large-fonts-man. I'm asking you what you mean by proof. Skeptics here have hammered the point over and over that "proof" means nothing outside of mathematics, so I find your use of the term puzzling. The one dodging is you, since I'm asking you for clarification.

 

[Craig B]

Originally Posted by Craig B

Got a link? I'll be fascinated to read the expressions about "ouija boards" and "crap" in the Harvard Theological Review.

Maximara response.

He doesn't use those exact words but that is the general gist of his paper.

Oh dear me. What a pity.

 

[dejudge]

OK, sure ... I am not going to argue that Paul's writing is any earlier than you think it is.

What I am saying above to David is that if we go along with his belief and almost everyone's belief, that Paul’s letters originally date from as early as circa.55AD-65AD, then any later gospel writers could obviously have been building on Paul’s ideas, but in any case ...

Your response is most strange. All of a sudden we should go along with belief. That is precisely what I will not do.

We should always go with the evidence.

You have been always asking for evidence for an historical Jesus now you want to go along with belief for Paul.

That is completely unacceptable.

There is no actual recovered or corroborative evidence for Jesus, the disciples and Paul in the 1st century pre 70 CE.

Ask David Mo for the evidence for Paul.

 

[maximara]

I'm not dodging, large-fonts-man.

YES YOU ARE!

I'm asking you what you mean by proof.

Tell me what part of scholarly paper detailing the methodology and-or even logic behind these dates did you not understand? Let's see what they have so we can evaluate it.

The fact you won't (or can't) produce even one such paper suggests there there is NO methodology and-or even logic behing these early dates and these dates are little more then wishful thinking or based on propaganda rather then anything even resembling research or facts.

 

[Belz...]

YES YOU ARE!

I'm asking you why you shifted from the use of the word evidence to the use of the word proof.

 

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Craig B Maximara response. Oh dear me. What a pity.

Still doesn't change the fact that it is the misuse of paleographic dating that produces the c125 CE date for Rylands Library Papyrus P52. A more realistic date for Rylands Library Papyrus given the limitations of paleographic dating is 175 CE +- 50 years.

The fact HRers keep throwing out the earliest date possible for what is a 100 year range makes the very dates they assign to the Gospels original writing suspect.

How are those dates figured?
What is being considered proof for these pre-130s dates we keep seeing?
What is the methodology being used?
How old are the works that assign these dates?

 

[maximara]

I'm asking you why you shifted from the use of the word evidence to the use of the word proof.

proof: evidence, verification, corroboration, authentication, confirmation, certification, validation, attestation, demonstration, substantiation, witness, testament; documentation, facts, data, testimony; ammunition (Oxford Thesaurus)

WHERE ARE THE SCHOLARLY PAPERS THAT PROVE THESE DATES ARE NOT SIMPLY PULLED OUT OF THE FREAKING AIR?!

Quit dodging the question, Belz. Either produce the scholarly papers that show where and how these dates are arrived at or stop wasting our time and admit the pre-130 dates have no basis in anything but wishful thinking, bad methodology, and Bermuda Triangleish like repeating of what the previous scholar has said to the point no one even knows where the dates came from or how they were arrived at. And see if you can find some in this century while you're at it.

Even Mark D. Roberts' Pro-HJ Can We Trust the Gospels? admits: "The dating of the Gospels involves a generous helping of subjectivity and therefore leads to considerable disagreement among scholars. The main problem is a lack of evidence."

The only thing that might push the date back before 130 CE is Papias of Hierapolis but NONE of his The Interpretations of the Sayings of the Lord has survived and is only known in bits and pieces from later authors.

Even if they were entirely faithful scholars question the reliability of Papias. In fact, Ehrman himself states "The reason this matters for our purposes here is that one of the few surviving quotations from Papias's work provides a reference to ... But unfortunately, there are problems with taking Papias's statement at face value and assuming that in Mark's Gospel we have a historically reliable account of the activities of Peter. To begin with, some elements of Papias's statement simply aren't plausible." (Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus 2006)