Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

Here is a list of the Universities in the UK: (spoilered for length)

Now, out of that list, many if not most of those places will teach courses on History. Many would cover the Ancient Near East, as that is a popular area of study.

No one in any of those Universities is teaching Carrier's Myth Jesus. Why not pick one and give them a call to find out why that is?

What an absurd argument!!!

It is just total nonsense to argue that no University in the UK teaches Carrier's Myth Jesus theory when Carrier is NOT a professor at any of those Universities.

It perhaps could be argued that NO University teaches Bart Ehrman's HJ theory in China.

Does any University in the UK teaches Robert Eisenman's theory on Jesus and Paul?

Please, you seem not to understand that the argument for an HJ in the time of Pilate MUST be based on actual EVIDENCE from antiquity and NOT on the curriculum of Universities.

Please, just go get enrolled at Harvard--Courses are being offered that covers the QUEST for an HJ from the 18th to the 21st century.

You will get to at least find out there is NO known existing evidence for an HJ in the time of Pilate and that the earliest actual recovered and dated manuscripts of the Jesus stories are from the 2nd century or later.

You don't seem to know what they teach at Universities throughout the Whole World--not only the UK.

Now, can you please tell us why there are CHAPELS at Universities?

May they expect some of the students to WORSHIP Jesus as the Son of a God who was RAISED from the Dead.

There are many Christian Scholars who attended Universities that BELIEVE in Jesus and claim he was a resurrected being.

Christian Scholars like Ratzinger and Robert Van Voorst admit their Jesus was RAISED from the dead

Your argument is a failure of logic and completely unreasonable--A University is NOT evidence of an HJ.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

I appreciate that you are specifically addressing those questions to what dejudge said. However it might help to clarify some of the sceptic position here if I make a couple of comments on the above -


On the first point - I don’t think any sceptics here are claiming that Ehrman (or any academic Bible Scholars) thinks everything in the bible is literally true. But what is being said, is that he and others do think that some of what the bible says about Jesus is actually true of a living HJ.

OK, good. Yes, Ehrman provides his criteria for why he thinks that it is more likely that an historical Jesus existed. I think the biggest controversy folks often object to Ehrman is his conclusions on what and how much he thinks is historical.

Second point - most sceptics here (and perhaps even all of them) are actually saying very little more than you yourself just said when you talked about the fact that there are “no clear, unequivocal, or non-problematic roughly contemporary references to an historical Jesus outside of the gospels and letters of Paul. Josephus is the closest, but the two passages that exist from his writings are controversial to say the least.”. IOW - 99% of what all sceptics are saying in 99% of these HJ threads, is simply that the evidence claimed for Jesus is by no means reliable enough to conclude that Jesus probably existed, let alone to conclude as Ehrman, Crossan and all those who Ehrman described as “almost every properly trained scholar on the planet", that Jesus “certainly” “definitely” did exist.

I think this is probably just a fine point, but I think what the HJ 'believers' say is only that they think there is enough evidence provided by the analysis to support an historical personage behind all the myth. I don't think that is much of a claim and don't completely understand why it causes so much controversy. There is no way to tell anything much about an HJ since most (if not all) of the gospels were stories invented to argue why the author thought Jesus was the messiah.

Essentially this seems, at least to me, to be an argument where one side says it's all myth and the other side says it's probably 99.9% myth. I don't understand why the latter claim is controversial to anyone, but it certainly seems to be.

Last point -the reason most sceptics reject the letters of Paul and the canonical gospels as evidence of Jesus is because they are (a) not remotely reliable in terms of the authenticity and veracity of their anonymous authors, and (b) not by any means credible in what they claim about a messiah that none of them ever knew but who they reported as believed by other unknown people to have been constantly performing all manner of miracles which, although no doubt universally believed at the time as both true and also as certain proof that Jesus was indeed the promised messiah, were then shown 1800 years later by science to be “certainly” all untrue fiction.

IOW - the whole thing comes down to the need for properly reliable evidence. And there simply isn’t any.

I have to disagree with your last point. It seems to me that there is too easy dismissal of the evidence from the gospels and letters of Paul. Of course the gospels are invented stories. Personally I find piecing out why I think different stories were invented an interesting exercise. It's really just a diversion, though, because it amounts to nothing.

But I think it is mistake to think that just because a story is mythical that there is no kernel of 'truth' behind some of the stories. It also, at least superficially, if not actually looks like the wholesale rejection of this material reveals an anti-Christian and/or anti-religious bias.

One of the ways of talking about this issue is to mention other clearly fictional accounts that people believe in -- like Sherlock Holmes or Harry Potter. The Sherlock Holmes example is quite a poor choice for the purposes of this discussion, though, because Holmes' character was based on an actual living human being.

Just to put things into perspective, what the HJers are saying is that they think there was a person behind some of the stories just like Joseph Bell was the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes.

I think there is plenty of argument to be made about how much historical information one can glean from the gospels and Paul's letters. My own view is that we can tell almost nothing about the guy.

While it might be the case that there was no historical person behind these stories, I am not convinced by the arguments claiming to prove the purely mythic nature of Jesus. I just, personally, think it makes more sense to default to a real person that a group of people thought some really odd things about.

Paul was clearly very wrong about what he thought about this person whether or not he existed. Paul seemed to think the end of current time was right around the corner. That belief is demonstrably incorrect since time keeps marching on, no Jehova or Jesus in sight.

 

[Belz...]

Thank you

You're doing fine so far.

 

[IanS]

While I generally agree, I must point out something else. It is impossible to argue from a completely dispassionate position; that is not the way humans work.

The 'objectivity' of the New York Times in the early part of the last century was an advertising slogan. They don't even try to argue that they are objective any longer. The same can be said of the Royal Society when it devised it rules for scientific publication. That was an attempt to ward off easy objections by claiming objectivity and writing pieces in a particular way.

Academics are well aware of this. Scientists are well aware of this. That is why academics employ clearly stated criteria in their analyses.

I'm afraid that arguing that a group of scholars is biased tells us nothing. All scholars have biases. Focusing on one group of potential biases and arguing that the scholars conclusions are not valid because of the perceived biases is the definition of ad hominem attack.

I think it might be more prudent to focus on the criteria employed by the scholars in question. That would constitute a valid attack on their work and their conclusions.

Hi, and welcome to this forum.

OK, well the first thing is - I generally agree with all that you have said too.

But I would make the following comments about it, taking the points in order -

- I did not say that there is anything called “absolute” objectivity, such that in some fields (such as science) everyone is always 100% objective in everything they ever say or do vs. other fields such as religious studies where everyone is always 100% lacking any objectivity in anything they ever do. Nobody is saying that objectivity and impartiality is a black & white issue like that.

However, it’s equally true that not all subjects taught at universities operate to equally rigorous standards of required objectivity and impartiality. And imho, practitioners in Bible Studies are not exercising sufficient objectivity if they rely upon (as they all in fact do) the Gospels and Paul’s letters as reliable sources of primary evidence about a messiah that none of it’s authors ever knew in any way at all except through their religious faith in the prophecies of their ancient OT. That is simply not an objective evidential basis on which to proceed in this subject, and especially not where it’s practitioners are concluding from such unreliable NT copyist writing that “Jesus certainly and definitely did exist”.

But the reason there is any dispute at all about the title of anyone being a “historian” vs. a “Bible scholar”, is that throughout these HJ threads, HJ proponents here have insisted that people like Ehrman and Crossan etc. are “historians”, because they want to say that historians are credible academics who use carefully researched objective practices. But the fact of the matter is, although Bart Ehrman likes to describe himself as a “historian”, he is actually not a historian by what is in effect definition … because he does not teach history in a history department, and does not have qualifications in mainstream history. Bart Ehrman is qualified in New Testament Bible studies and Theology, and he teaches Bible Studies, in a Bible Studies department … and that is true of almost all his many thousands of colleagues too … they are qualified in religious studies, and teach branches of religious studies, in religious studies departments of various academic institutes,

However, if as you say, we “focus on the criteria used by the scholars in question”, then the main criteria is that their absolutely central source of evidence for their belief in Jesus, is nothing else except the gospels and Paul’s letters, i.e. the NT bible. And that is simply not good enough as a reliable source credible in what it’s anonymous authors wrote about a miraculous messiah that none of them had ever known.

IOW, to repeat - it comes down to a question of the claimed evidence of a living Jesus. And what is claimed by bible scholars like Ehrman and Crossan as evidence from the Bible, is simply far short of what is objectively good enough.

 

[dejudge]

Could I ask for a point of clarification? Is it not possible to study religious material from an historical perspective? Is it not possible to employ the criteria that other historians use in their analyses to religious material? Is that not what Ehrman does?

It is Ehrman himself who challenges the qualifications of those who oppose his theory.

Please, read page 2 of the Introduction of "Did Jesus Exist?" by Bart Ehrman.

As soon as Ehrman challenged the qualifications of those who argued for a mythological Jesus then his credibility was lost when he claimed he was an historian at page 6 of the Introduction of "Did Jesus Exist?"

Even in his recent book Ehrman continues to make claims as an historian when he is NOT qualified.

It should be noted that Ehrman's argument for an HJ ["Did Jesus Exist?"] has been considered one of the very worst if not the worst and was not recommended by Richard Carrier.

Even Scholars who argue for an HJ have distanced themselves from some of Ehrman's claims and Carrier after a review admitted "Did Jesus Exist?" is a failure of logic and facts.

 

[Belz...]

It is Ehrman himself who challenges the qualifications of those who oppose his theory.

Well that makes it alright, then.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

It is Ehrman himself who challenges the qualifications of those who oppose his theory.

Please, read page 2 of the Introduction of "Did Jesus Exist?" by Bart Ehrman.

As soon as Ehrman challenged the qualifications of those who argued for a mythological Jesus then his credibility was lost when he claimed he was an historian at page 6 of the Introduction of "Did Jesus Exist?"

Even in his recent book Ehrman continues to make claims as an historian when he is NOT qualified.

It should be noted that Ehrman's argument for an HJ ["Did Jesus Exist?"] has been considered one of the very worst if not the worst and was not recommended by Richard Carrier.

Even Scholars who argue for an HJ have distanced themselves from some of Ehrman's claims and Carrier after a review admitted "Did Jesus Exist?" is a failure of logic and facts.

All fine and well, but you did not address my questions. I really don't want to argue about Bart Ehrman's shortcomings, but would like to ask is it not possible to study religions from an historical perspective? I think that it is and don't think that is controversial.

 

[Gregoire]

It seems to me that there is too easy dismissal of the evidence from the gospels and letters of Paul. Of course the gospels are invented stories. Personally I find piecing out why I think different stories were invented an interesting exercise. It's really just a diversion, though, because it amounts to nothing.

But I think it is mistake to think that just because a story is mythical that there is no kernel of 'truth' behind some of the stories. It also, at least superficially, if not actually looks like the wholesale rejection of this material reveals an anti-Christian and/or anti-religious bias.


…...I think there is plenty of argument to be made about how much historical information one can glean from the gospels and Paul's letters.

Welcome, Phil.

Thanks for your commentary!

Interestingly, many have pointed out this is one of the fundamental misunderstandings that mythicists have regarding the study of history. As we have seen in this thread, they seem to infer that any text which describes the supernatural as real is automatically disqualified. So even if Paul might mention that he met the biological brother of Jesus, it can't be considered evidence.

But as you have eloquently pointed out, that is not how actual scholars use the historical critical method. Every writing is a "source"; their task is to put all the sources together, being fully cognizant that each writer has biases, and to come up with what is most likely to have occurred.* **

Note to the rest of the board, Carrier himself doesn't even make these sorts of claims. As I said earlier, he has a nuanced, technical and scholarly argument (which we have not seen in this thread, BTW). And he fully admits he is in a tiny minority of scholars who promotes that hypothesis.







*Ehrman actually discusses the historical critical method in detail in the following course: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=643

**For another example of the historical critical method, consider Carrier's own discussion in The Christian Delusion pp 291-292. Note Carrier actually points out how the works of Herodotus are filled with supernatural "events":

the temple of Delphi "magically defends itself", "a horse gives birth to a rabbit", a whole town " witnessed a mass resurrection of cooked fish".

Yet, Herodotus is still considered a "source" from the ancient world. And Carrier never has us think otherwise. Of course, we don't accept the supernatural events-- that is how people in the ancient world wrote and thought. But we still can use Herodotus as a source.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Hi, and welcome to this forum.

OK, well the first thing is - I generally agree with all that you have said too.

But I would make the following comments about it, taking the points in order -

- I did not say that there is anything called “absolute” objectivity, such that in some fields (such as science) everyone is always 100% objective in everything they ever say or do vs. other fields such as religious studies where everyone is always 100% lacking any objectivity in anything they ever do. Nobody is saying that objectivity and impartiality is a black & white issue like that.

OK, good, agreed.

However, it’s equally true that not all subjects taught at universities operate to equally rigorous standards of required objectivity and impartiality. And imho, practitioners in Bible Studies are not exercising sufficient objectivity if they rely upon (as they all in fact do) the Gospels and Paul’s letters as reliable sources of primary evidence about a messiah that none of it’s authors ever knew in any way at all except through their religious faith in the prophecies of their ancient OT. That is simply not an objective evidential basis on which to proceed in this subject, and especially not where it’s practitioners are concluding from such unreliable NT copyist writing that “Jesus certainly and definitely did exist”.

Yes, definitely agree. Historians do not like to admit this, but their field is not terribly rigorous, at least not when compared to physics or chemistry. The same can be said of Psychology, though it is improving as a field.

Bible Studies is clearly a relatively non-rigorous field by its very nature. But there are Bible Studies and there are Bible Studies. Not everyone approaches the subject from the same perspective, so it is not really fair to lump them together and treat all the same.

A 'scholar' at Liberty University does not approach this material the same way that Crossan and Ehrman do. When it comes to Crossan I don't think I can reliably state if he is a believer or not. He does not think that Jesus was put in a tomb and resurrected from the dead in the way related in the gospels. But he still seems to be a believer. Ehrman is not.

I object to anyone who says that Jesus definitely, no question about it, existed too. I don't see any way to make such an absolute statement.

Regarding the reliability of the gospels and Paul's letters as historical documents, I think it depends entirely what one wants to glean from them. Most academic HJ research does not concern itself with Jesus as messiah -- that is a matter of faith. HJ 'research' concerns if he existed and what he might have actually done if he existed. I think it best to leave the messiah talk to the side when discussing HJ endeavors -- unless you particularly want to refer to the faith community or what the authors seemed to believe.

Even in purely fictional works one can glean historical facts. That should not be controversial. We could use the Harry Potter series, for example as evidence that automobiles exist. We should be skeptical about their ability to fly and suffer damage from a tree whomping them, however.

However, if as you say, we “focus on the criteria used by the scholars in question”, then the main criteria is that their absolutely central source of evidence for their belief in Jesus, is nothing else except the gospels and Paul’s letters, i.e. the NT bible. And that is simply not good enough as a reliable source credible in what it’s anonymous authors wrote about a miraculous messiah that none of them had ever known.

IOW, to repeat - it comes down to a question of the claimed evidence of a living Jesus. And what is claimed by bible scholars like Ehrman and Crossan as evidence from the Bible, is simply far short of what is objectively good enough.

I think I must object to two things in the above statement. First, I think it is possible to use the gospels and Paul's letters if one applies strict criteria to them and arrive at historical probability -- just as one can glean the existence of cars from Harry Potter. We could not do that if the gospels and Paul's letters were all that we have, but that is not the case -- which is my second objection. There is extra-biblical material that informs the discussion, and historical analysis of first century CE Judaism also informs the conclusions one can draw from this material.

I fully agree that what Crossan and Ehrman claim about an historical Jesus falls short of good argument. But the fact that they stretch too far does not diminish the argument that there may have been a person behind the stories.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Welcome, Phil.

Thanks for your commentary!

Thank you for the kind words.

I have not read any of Carrier's stuff. Is 'The Christian Delusion' a good place to start?


ETA:
Just downloaded 'Proving History' to the Kindle. Looks like just the thing I love to read. Thanks.

 

[tsig]

OK, good, agreed.



Yes, definitely agree. Historians do not like to admit this, but their field is not terribly rigorous, at least not when compared to physics or chemistry. The same can be said of Psychology, though it is improving as a field.

Bible Studies is clearly a relatively non-rigorous field by its very nature. But there are Bible Studies and there are Bible Studies. Not everyone approaches the subject from the same perspective, so it is not really fair to lump them together and treat all the same.

A 'scholar' at Liberty University does not approach this material the same way that Crossan and Ehrman do. When it comes to Crossan I don't think I can reliably state if he is a believer or not. He does not think that Jesus was put in a tomb and resurrected from the dead in the way related in the gospels. But he still seems to be a believer. Ehrman is not.

I object to anyone who says that Jesus definitely, no question about it, existed too. I don't see any way to make such an absolute statement.

Regarding the reliability of the gospels and Paul's letters as historical documents, I think it depends entirely what one wants to glean from them. Most academic HJ research does not concern itself with Jesus as messiah -- that is a matter of faith. HJ 'research' concerns if he existed and what he might have actually done if he existed. I think it best to leave the messiah talk to the side when discussing HJ endeavors -- unless you particularly want to refer to the faith community or what the authors seemed to believe.

Even in purely fictional works one can glean historical facts. That should not be controversial. We could use the Harry Potter series, for example as evidence that automobiles exist. We should be skeptical about their ability to fly and suffer damage from a tree whomping them, however.



I think I must object to two things in the above statement. First, I think it is possible to use the gospels and Paul's letters if one applies strict criteria to them and arrive at historical probability -- just as one can glean the existence of cars from Harry Potter. We could not do that if the gospels and Paul's letters were all that we have, but that is not the case -- which is my second objection. There is extra-biblical material that informs the discussion, and historical analysis of first century CE Judaism also informs the conclusions one can draw from this material.

I fully agree that what Crossan and Ehrman claim about an historical Jesus falls short of good argument. But the fact that they stretch too far does not diminish the argument that there may have been a person behind the stories.

Care to elaborate on what strict criteria are used to tell the true parts from the false parts?

 

[dejudge]

duplicated

 

[dejudge]

All fine and well, but you did not address my questions. I really don't want to argue about Bart Ehrman's shortcomings, but would like to ask is it not possible to study religions from an historical perspective? I think that it is and don't think that is controversial.

I did address your post. You ASKED what Ehrman does? How come you have forgotten the questions you ask?

Ehrman is not an historian and his methodology is horribly flawed.


"It should be noted that Ehrman's argument for an HJ ["Did Jesus Exist?"] has been considered one of the very worst if not the worst and was not recommended by Richard Carrier.

Even Scholars who argue for an HJ have distanced themselves from some of Ehrman's claims and Carrier after a review admitted "Did Jesus Exist?" is a failure of logic and facts".

Essentially, Bart Ehrman is not credible and his argument for an HJ is effectively worthless [a failure of logic and facts].

http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1026

 

[dejudge]

Regarding the reliability of the gospels and Paul's letters as historical documents, I think it depends entirely what one wants to glean from them. Most academic HJ research does not concern itself with Jesus as messiah -- that is a matter of faith. HJ 'research' concerns if he existed and what he might have actually done if he existed. I think it best to leave the messiah talk to the side when discussing HJ endeavors -- unless you particularly want to refer to the faith community or what the authors seemed to believe.

You are NOT familiar with Academia. You don't seem to realize that MOST Scholars may be Christians who WORSHIP Jesus as their Resurrected Lord and Savior.

You don't seem to realize that Christians Scholars are NOT interested in the evidence that shows Jesus of Nazareth was a Myth and ONLY require Faith.

Academia appears to be INUNDATED by Christians, fundamentalists and Evangelicals, who WORSHIP Jesus as a God.

Ratzinger, the former bishop of Rome, is a Christian Scholars.

Do you have any idea of the vast quantity of Christian Scholars in Academia?

By the way, there was NEVER any established evidence of an human Jesus with a human father and that is precisely why there is an ON-GOING QUEST for an HJ since the 18th century to this very day.

Your belief that there was an an HJ is really worthless in this discussion and may be suitable for Sunday School.

BELIEF of existence is NOT evidence of existence.

The actual existing recovered manuscripts of the Jesus are no earlier than the 2nd century or later and they describe Jesus as a Myth.

 

[Stone]

I think it might be more prudent to focus on the criteria employed by the scholars in question. That would constitute a valid attack on their work and their conclusions.

Mythers don't _know_ the criteria, and they view it as a badge of honor not to know. To get mythers to talk seriously about professional historians' criteria would be like getting creationists to talk seriously about punctuated equilibrium in evolution. Their "honor" forbids it. :-(

Stone

 

[Stone]

Essentially this seems, at least to me, to be an argument where one side says it's all myth and the other side says it's probably 99.9% myth. I don't understand why the latter claim is controversial to anyone, but it certainly seems to be.

The latter claim is controversial because the mythers are the new fundies.

Stone

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Care to elaborate on what strict criteria are used to tell the true parts from the false parts?

Ah, there's the rub. One of the very big questions to answer is whether or not any of the criteria pass muster since everyone and his cousin says s/he follows the same criteria and yet they all seem to end up with a different historical Jesus.

The usual suspects are the ones that Gregoire linked to in his post. I'll relist them once I have the time.

But I will say this -- there is no way to tell the true parts from the false parts. The only thing any historical criterion can do is help to figure out what might lead one to think one way more than another. It can never assign truth or falsity only relative probability.


ETA:
Sorry, had to attend to other matters for a few minutes. The most commonly used criteria are dissimilarity, independent attestation, and historical appropriateness

 

[Belz...]

I did address your post. You ASKED what Ehrman does? How come you have forgotten the questions you ask?

He asked this:

Is it not possible to study religious material from an historical perspective? Is it not possible to employ the criteria that other historians use in their analyses to religious material? Is that not what Ehrman does?

That's THREE questions, neither of which you answered. You basically trotted out a tu quoque on Ehrman, which is a fallacy, without bothering to answer, and now you're trying to convince us that "what Ehrman does?" is what prompted your post ? Assuming this is true, that you are only able to memorise the last three words a post would surely account for many of your own contributions here.

 

[Belz...]

You are NOT familiar with Academia. You don't seem to realize that MOST Scholars may be Christians who WORSHIP Jesus as their Resurrected Lord and Savior.

[...]

Academia appears to be INUNDATED by Christians, fundamentalists and Evangelicals, who WORSHIP Jesus as a God.

Ad hominem.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You are NOT familiar with Academia.

Really? It may well be that the chairman of my department agrees with you. I will check with him and see what he says.

If you would like to address something I said I will be willing to discuss it with you. I am not interested in following diatribes with anything more than silence -- but I thought I should let you know before I do not respond to you in future.