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.
You may not have seen all that has been posted here and in several concurrent HJ threads, but it has been shown with quotes repeated throughout Ehrman’s 2013 book and from what he said live on film on shortly after that books publication, that Ehrman does not merely say
“it is more likely that an historical Jesus existed”, he repeatedly says it is
“certain” that Jesus
“definitely” existed. And describing his views on this (i.e. his opinion of absolute unguarded “certainty”), he says that
“almost every properly trained scholar on the planet” agrees with his views.
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.
Oh sure, we might all be able to agree that much of what is said about Jesus in the bible appears to be untrue or “myth“ (we don’t have to go as far as saying it‘s “99.9%“). But the main dispute which causes these threads to persist (one of several problems actually), is that the HJ side say that the evidence is good enough for them each to decide that it is more likely than not that Jesus existed, i.e. that the evidence provides greater than 50% likelihood of his existence. And several people here have put their own probability on that with some saying 60:40, others saying 70:30, and I think at least one said 90% probability of Jesus existing.
And as noted above, almost everyone on the HJ side has supported those 50%+ positions by constantly appealing to the authority of academics such as Bart Ehrman and Dominic Crossan, who in fact insist that the evidence is so good as to make the existence not merely 51%, 60%, 70% or 90%, but in fact 100% absolutely “certain”.
So there is a rather obvious “disconnect” there in the logic of people here who on the one hand have repeatedly said (literally hundreds of times in these HJ threads) that sceptics here are not fit to question the expert assessment of Bible scholars like Ehrman and Crossan (and/or any of the other half dozen or so scholars that have been named and discussed here), and yet when asked about the statement of 100% certainty by these bible scholars, the HJ proponents here themselves reject that expert opinion and say that the evidence only supports 51% - 90% likelihood of a HJ. IOW - the HJ side is also rejecting the expert conclusion of what Bart Ehrman assures us is quote “almost every properly trained scholar on the planet”.
But far worse than that seeming illogicality - when asked what evidence these bible scholars present to conclude that Jesus existed, nobody here can cite any clear-cut statement of reliable & credible evidence cited by any of these bible scholars. And in fact the two main pieces of evidence cited by Ehrman are (1)that he believes the bible when it says that Paul met “James the Lords Brother”, and (2)that Jesus is exceptionally well “attested” for any figure in ancient history, because there exist no less than 7 “Independent” attestations, those being Paul, g-Mark, G-Mathew, G-Luke, and the hypothetical writings called Q, M, and L … he says those are all independent attestations to a real Jesus, and that level of attestation is strong evidence for his existence. Dominic Crossan has similarly said that (quoting roughly from memory) “the crucifixion of Jesus is just about the most certain fact in all of history”.
So that is supposed to be the main evidence which is presented by Bible scholars like Ehrman and Crossan. And that is supposed to be the sort of unassailable expert assessment which sceptics here are unfit to question, and for which sceptics here have been repeatedly accused of being “liar, lying, uneducated, idiot, dishonest, moron…”.
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.
There might always be some truthful elements in any story no matter how tainted the entire story is with persistent and proven fictions being presented on every page. But the problem with any testimony like that is that the huge number of persistent fictions makes the entire work completely unreliable as a source. And especially so when none of those sources ever claimed to have known any messiah called Jesus, when they could not quote any known person who ever wrote to confirm that they had ever met Jesus, and where none of it is known from any original writing by any of those named people anyway, but instead only known from what even more unknown religious copyists wrote as copies made centuries later. That is not a reliable source by any stretch of any objective imagination.
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 am not familiar with the stories of Sherlock Holmes, and I don’t know who Joseph Bell was. But presumably you are saying that there is good evidence for the existence of a real person named Joseph Bell?
OK, so where is the real person behind the Jesus stories? Where is the evidence (comparable to your example of Joseph Bell), of the known real person behind the Jesus beliefs?
Actually, I can give you a very clear answer to that myself, and it’s an answer which has been spelt out by all sceptics in these HJ threads, and spelt out in all sceptic books ever written about Jesus. And that answer is that the actual story behind Paul’s Jesus and Jesus beliefs written in the gospels, is in fact the Old Testament prophecy of a messiah stretching back many centuries before any NT biblical writers were even born. That of course was never a real person such as Mr Bell, but it was a very real religious belief held by everyone in that region. IOW - the figure behind the Jesus belief was the OT prophecy of a coming messiah to save the souls of the nation and raise the faithful unto heaven. And that prior belief is stated very clearly indeed in Paul’s letters and in the gospels of Mark and Mathew … and if you read Randel Helms book (Gospel Fictions), Helms spends the entirety of the book describing and quoting in detail how g-MarK and G-Mathew etc. constructed their Jesus stories from what they believed to have been written in various books of the old testament.
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.
I don’t recall anyone here
“claiming to prove the purely mythic nature of Jesus“. Can you quote anyone here claiming that? I certainly have never done that, nor implied or even so much as hinted at any such thing. And in fact, I have not even read any sceptic books which claim that either. Certainly not in the books I have from Wells and Ellegard.
What sceptics here
have said is that the Bible is not reliable enough as a source of evidence. And certainly not in the case of an exceptionally important figure like Jesus. Exceptionally important claims do require better than minimal evidence. “Evidence” which in this case appears to boil down entirely to evidence of peoples 1st century religious beliefs as told in the bible, but not actually any evidence of Jesus himself as a living person.
Could Jesus have existed? Sure, he might have done. And I have said that here many times myself.
But the problem is that there is really no reliable or credible evidential account of his existence. Really, none at all. In which case I do not see how one can make a logical argument to say that he probably existed (i.e. as a likelihood greater than 50%), let alone bible scholars insisting that it's good enough to declare 100% certainty, and for HJ people here to describe anyone who disputes what those scholars say as
"idiot, lying, liar, dishonest, uneducated, moron...".
The problem is the complete lack of reliable credible evidence.
