Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Craig B]

Still waiting for a source for your claim about the Pauline corpus being a second or third century fake.

The entire NT, in fact. dejudge, how was this forgery done? By what sorts of people, where and when? Why?

Did they use existing material, or start with blank sheets? If they used existing material, where did that come from? Who composed it? ... But hey, dejudge knows the sort of questions that need answering about his claims. Give us an account of this, please, when nothing more urgent commands your attention.

 

[dejudge]

Then it is safe to say that you don't understand the concept of textual analysis nor how it is used in Historical studies.

You are NOT an historian. You don't know the value of Evidence. You seem to think an expert's opinion has more value than a WITNESS of antiquity.

Still waiting for a source for your claim about the Pauline corpus being a second or third century fake.

Still waiting for an author in the NT who claimed the Pauline Corpus was composed before the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE.

Who told you that the Pauline Corpus was written in the time of Nero?
It wasn't gMark.

It wasn't gmathhew.

It wasn't gLuke.

It wasn't gJohn.

It wasn't Acts

It wasn't the Pauline Corpus.

It wasn't the Non-Pauline writings.

It wasn't Revelation

Somebody made up the chronology of the Pauline Corpus.

If it is argued that the Pauline letters were composed before the Gospels because they mention virtually nothing of the Life of Jesus then it can also be argued that Acts of the Apostles predated the Pauline Corpus because it mentions nothing of the Pauline Revealed Gospel--Salvation and Remission of Sins by the Resurrection of Jesus.

 

[dejudge]

The claim that there are authentic Pauline writings does not any negative effect on the MJ argument.

The claim that Plutarch's Romulus is authentic does NOT negate the argument that Romulus is a figure of mythology.

If we knew who actually wrote gLuke it would still be a source of mythology if the contents were not altered.

If it is assumed the Pauline Corpus is authentic it still states 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.

If the Pauline writings are authentic then the Pauline writer is a WITNESS that there was NO historical Jesus.

The Pauline Jesus is a Jesus of FAITH

The Pauline Jesus MUST perform a non-historical act and Paul MUST be a Witness of event.

Paul MUST Testify that God raised Jesus from the dead and that he was SEEN of him.

The Pauline writer authenticated Myth Jesus.

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 15:17 KJV

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

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 .

Galatians 1:1 KJV[/QUOTE] Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead[/QUOTE]


Galatians

11 But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. 12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The Pauline Jesus was NOT a figure of history.

The supposed Authentic Paul needs a Resurrected being.

The supposed Authentic Paul does NOT need Flesh and Blood.

Authentic Paul NEEDS Myth Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

max

Either Pliny is leaving out some important details or his moral compass even by 2nd century Roman standards was totally off kilter.

How so? An experienced bureaucrat is writing about what will interest his boss (the accused worship a man but not the Emperor, hold secret meetings at odd hours which are presided over by slave women, take vows, but nothing dicey, and don't practice cannibalism despite rumors), and skims over the even more ridiculous but harmless stuff that is purely belief and does not cash out in any overt actions, and do not call for overt action as a remedy.


dejudge

There is no statement in the Pauline Corpus that the other Apostles worshiped a man as a God.

Of course not. The other Apostles did not worship any man as God. The Apostles are Jews, for whom "man who is God" is a category mistake. For Paul's Gentile Christian readers, "man who is God" means there was an act of the senate, or Jupiter was feeling randy one day.


proudfootz

This would account for the lack of a ministry and disciples as well. Occam's Razor does the trick!

As would the ministry having been directed exclusively to Jews during secular time and Paul's readers being Gentiles during the end of days already in progress.

Actually, it's the same principle of good business letter writing discussed with max above. Whether writing to bosses or to subordinates, the letter should address what action the writer wants the recipient to take, and emphasize the information that is relevant to that desired action.

Any claim by others to authority now on account of an earlier discipleship is nicely checked by 2 Corinthians 5: 16, "...from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." Parsimony suggests that Paul had a business reason to bring that situation up in a business letter.

 

[pakeha]

The MJ argument has far more mythological evidence than probably all the myth characters in antiquity.

Hundreds of manuscripts, Codices and Apologetic writings have been found describing Jesus of Nazareth as a myth from conception to ascension.

HJers have no contemporary evidence for their argument and are attempting to put forward a most illogical notion that there is little evidence for a Mythological Jesus.

There are hundreds of arguments by Jesus cult Christians that their Jesus never had a human father and was God Creator.

Virtually every Christian writer argued AGAINST an historical Jesus for hundreds of years.

If Jesus of Nazareth never existed in the 1st century then there would NO evidence of his existence and that is exactly what has happened.

It can easily be argued that Jesus was a figure of mythology UNTIL new evidence surfaces.

Again you zero in on a telling point: it just won't do to dismiss all the mythological material and then turn around and say there's 'no evidence' of mythology.

Indeed.
"Virtually every Christian writer argued AGAINST an historical Jesus for hundreds of years."

ETA
Arggh.
I clipped of my post in the pre-coffee state I was in, compounded by an emergency phone call which commits me to preparing an Easter brunch for 6 with 45 minutes notice. I'll try to regroup after work this evening.

 

[dejudge]

dejudge.... The other Apostles did not worship any man as God. The Apostles are Jews, for whom "man who is God" is a category mistake. For Paul's Gentile Christian readers, "man who is God" means there was an act of the senate, or Jupiter was feeling randy one day.

Please, you just made that up. Where is your source--the evidence from antiquity? You seem to have the ability to invent stories with remarkable ease.

 

[Belz...]

Your HJ argument carries zero weight because you cannot show you have a working knowledge of EVIDENCE..

Dejudge's learned words of the day: carry and weight.

 

[Craig B]

Please, you just made that up. Where is your source--the evidence from antiquity? You seem to have the ability to invent stories with remarkable ease.

What story did eight bits make up?

The other Apostles did not worship any man as God.

Nothing made up there! Whatever "brother of The Lord" meant, it didn't mean Brother of God. And look at Acts 2:22. Does that say Jesus was God?

The Apostles are Jews, for whom "man who is God" is a category mistake.

Did eight bits make that up? The Apostles worshipped in the Temple as Jesus had done. In Acts 1 they question the risen Jesus

6 When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

That's a sort of Jewish thing to ask, isn't it?

For Paul's Gentile Christian readers, "man who is God" means there was an act of the senate, or Jupiter was feeling randy one day.

Did eight bits make that up? Gentiles were familiar with the Senate declaring dead Emperors to be gods. And Caligula proclaimed himself to be a god, because he was nuts. Also other man-gods were believed to be born because Jupiter had his way with various human women. Eight bits made nothing up. Nothing at all.

 

[maximara]

Then it is safe to say that you don't understand the concept of textual analysis nor how it is used in Historical studies.

Thanks.

Still waiting for a source for your claim about the Pauline corpus being a second or third century fake.

I take it you are ignorant of "The New Testament letters – parts 1 and 2" as well as Joseph Wheless' Forgery In Christianity

The later is likely the most extreme claim of forgery I have ever read and is entertaining just for its cheese factor though there are some nuggets of good ideas if you take the time to wade through the nonsense.

 

[proudfootz]

proudfootz

As would the ministry having been directed exclusively to Jews during secular time and Paul's readers being Gentiles during the end of days already in progress.

Actually, it's the same principle of good business letter writing discussed with max above. Whether writing to bosses or to subordinates, the letter should address what action the writer wants the recipient to take, and emphasize the information that is relevant to that desired action.

Any claim by others to authority now on account of an earlier discipleship is nicely checked by 2 Corinthians 5: 16, "...from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer." Parsimony suggests that Paul had a business reason to bring that situation up in a business letter.

I pointed out earlier that Paul is apt to use examples, like modern day evangelists, from the earthly careers of bible characters.

There would have been plenty of opportunities for Paul to do this in the doctrinal disputes. On circumcision, on keeping kosher, etc.

I disagree on the interpretation of the phrase quoted from 2 Corinthians.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2 Corinthians 5&version=NIV

In context it appears he is referring to his listeners judging things from a worldly perspective - that they should consider his christ from an otherworldly point of view, and not their old carnal one.

We could presume Paul knows about the gospel narratives. But I don't think there is no compelling reason to do so.

 

[proudfootz]

Please, you just made that up. Where is your source--the evidence from antiquity? You seem to have the ability to invent stories with remarkable ease.

There is a distinct lack of interest in evidence from antiquity - it's much easier to repeat the claims of 18th century bible scholars.

 

[Craig B]

There is a distinct lack of interest in evidence from antiquity - it's much easier to repeat the claims of 18th century bible scholars.

Eh? Of course I forgot. The NT sources aren't evidence. Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus and Suetonius are off limits too. So there's no evidence. So nobody is interested in evidence, I suppose.

 

[IanS]

Eh? Of course I forgot. The NT sources aren't evidence. Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus and Suetonius are off limits too. So there's no evidence. So nobody is interested in evidence, I suppose.

The NT contains plenty of evidence. But as you must understand by now, it only contains evidence of what various religious fanatics believed about a messiah that none of them had ever known except in a spiritual sense of belief in the supernatural. There is actually not one single credible word of evidence anywhere in the entire NT to show that anyone actually ever met anyone called Jesus.

There was apparently a great deal of other more historical & more factual contemporary and near-contemporary writing all throughout that period. But almost none of it ever mentioned Jesus at all. Completely silent about it.

The very few sources such as Tacitus and Josephus that do make ultra brief mention of Jesus, can only be hearsay, because their authors were not even born at the time of Jesus. And what little they do say came from sources that are left entirely anonymous and unexplained. Neither Tacitus, nor Josephus were in a position to give any evidence of Jesus, because they did not themselves actually know any evidence of Jesus.

In the epistles of various early Christians (as distinct from the gospels), it is apparently true that nobody ever witnessed Jesus except as a spiritual belief, said to be in accordance with divine revelation and OT scriptural prophecy.

As a body of objective credible “evidence”, that is frankly worthless.

 

[Craig B]

... As a body of objective credible “evidence”, that is frankly worthless.

Therefore nobody can produce evidence, and you don't need to address any arguments cos nobody has produced any evidence.

 

[dejudge]

Eh? Of course I forgot. The NT sources aren't evidence. Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus and Suetonius are off limits too. So there's no evidence. So nobody is interested in evidence, I suppose.

Your HJ is a Myth. Your HJ has NO history in or out the Bible

The NT is EVIDENCE of a Myth called Jesus of Nazareth.

Let us look at the Evidence in the NT. All we read about Jesus is NOT history but mythology.

1. Jesus was Born of a Holy Ghost.

2. Jesus was with Satan the Devil on the pinnacle of the Temple.

3. Jesus Walked on the sea of Galilee.

4. Jesus Transfigured in the presence of the resurrected Moses and Elijah.

5. Jesus resurrected on the third day.

6. The resurrected Jesus enters a house with all the doors LOCKED.

7. Jesus ATE food after the resurrection.

8. Jesus was a cook at a "beach party" after he was raised from the dead.

9. Jesus commissioned his disciples AFTER he was raised from the dead.

10. Jesus ascends to heaven in a cloud.


The Miracles of Jesus are all non-historical accounts.

1 Jesus Turns Water into Wine.
2 Jesus Heals an Official's Son.
3 Jesus Drives Out an Evil Spirit.
4 Jesus Heals Peter's Mother-in-Law.
5 Jesus Heals Many Sick at Evening.
6 First Miraculous Catch of Fish.
7 Jesus Cleanses a Man With Leprosy.
8 Jesus Heals a Centurion's Servant.
9 Jesus Heals a Paralytic.
10 Jesus Heals a Man's Withered Hand.
11 Jesus Raises a Widow's Son in Nain.
12 Jesus Calms a Storm.
13 Jesus Casts Demons into a Herd of Pigs.
14 Jesus Heals a Woman in the Crowd.
15 Jesus Raises Jairus' Daughter to Life.
16 Jesus Heals Two Blind Men.
17 Jesus Heals a Man Unable to Speak.
18 Jesus Heals an Invalid at Bethesda.
19 Jesus Feeds 5,000.
20 Jesus Walks on Water.
21 Jesus Heals Many Sick in Gennesaret.
22 Jesus Heals a Gentile Woman's Demon-Possessed Daughter.
23 Jesus Heals a Deaf and Dumb Man.
24 Jesus Feeds 4,000.
25 Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida.
26 Jesus Heals a Man Born Blind.
27 Jesus Heals a Boy with a Demon.
28 Miraculous Temple Tax in a Fish's Mouth.
29 Jesus Heals a Blind, Mute Demoniac .
30 Jesus Heals a Crippled Woman.
31 Jesus Heals a Man With Dropsy on the Sabbath.
32 Jesus Cleanses Ten Lepers.
33 Jesus Raises Lazarus from the Dead.
34 Jesus Restores Sight to Bartimaeus.
35 Jesus Withers the Fig Tree.
36 Jesus Heals a Servant's Severed Ear.
37 Second Miraculous Catch of Fish.

 

[Craig B]

The Miracles of Jesus are all non-historical accounts.

Yes, that's true. A few of them might be exaggerated accounts of natural occurrences, but as miracles they didn't happen. I think you're right.

 

[dejudge]

Yes, that's true. A few of them might be exaggerated accounts of natural occurrences, but as miracles they didn't happen. I think you're right.

Yes, the NT is EVIDENCE for a non-historical Jesus.

Jesus of Nazareth did NOT happen.

Your HJ is a Myth.
Your HJ ONLY had a Title--The Son of God.

That is the very title of a Myth.

Your HJ is no different to Satan the Devil because your HJ was with Satan in the wilderness.

Mark 1:13 KJV---And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him

Job 2:1 KJV---Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.

 

[proudfootz]

Eh? Of course I forgot. The NT sources aren't evidence. Pliny, Tacitus, Josephus and Suetonius are off limits too. So there's no evidence. So nobody is interested in evidence, I suppose.

Actually, they are evidence - Pliny says his christians worshiped their christ as a god - no historical Jesus there.

Tacitus (if he wrote the passage) repeats what 2nd century christians then believed. But we already know there were these gospel tales in the 2nd century.

Suetonius cays his Chrestus was alive in Rome during the reign of Caligula. So not very much like the Jesus in Palestine who died years before that.

Josephus - by now everyone knows this is pretty useless. Even Bart Ehrman admits it.

The epistles don't offer much for an historian to say about any Jesus but the cosmic christ.

So that leaves the gospel tales.

 

[proudfootz]

The NT contains plenty of evidence. But as you must understand by now, it only contains evidence of what various religious fanatics believed about a messiah that none of them had ever known except in a spiritual sense of belief in the supernatural. There is actually not one single credible word of evidence anywhere in the entire NT to show that anyone actually ever met anyone called Jesus.

There was apparently a great deal of other more historical & more factual contemporary and near-contemporary writing all throughout that period. But almost none of it ever mentioned Jesus at all. Completely silent about it.

The very few sources such as Tacitus and Josephus that do make ultra brief mention of Jesus, can only be hearsay, because their authors were not even born at the time of Jesus. And what little they do say came from sources that are left entirely anonymous and unexplained. Neither Tacitus, nor Josephus were in a position to give any evidence of Jesus, because they did not themselves actually know any evidence of Jesus.

In the epistles of various early Christians (as distinct from the gospels), it is apparently true that nobody ever witnessed Jesus except as a spiritual belief, said to be in accordance with divine revelation and OT scriptural prophecy.

As a body of objective credible “evidence”, that is frankly worthless.

Which is why HJ might be a worthy hypothesis, but to insist all knees must bow to it is going well beyond the ability of the evidence we have now.

 

[dejudge]

The very few sources such as Tacitus and Josephus that do make ultra brief mention of Jesus, can only be hearsay, because their authors were not even born at the time of Jesus.

Please, Tacitus and Josephus did NOT mention Jesus of Nazareth.

Up to the 4th century, Hierocles admitted that no known writer mentioned Jesus of Nazareth and Julian the Emperor also challenged anyone to show that well known writers mentioned Jesus of Galilee.

Eusebius' Against Hierocles

And this point is also worth noticing, that whereas the tales of Jesus have been vamped up by Peter and Paul and a few others of the kind,--men who were liars and devoid of education and wizards, --the history of Apollonius was written by Maximus of Aegae, and by Damis the philosopher who lived constantly with him. and by Philostratus of Athens, men of the highest education, who out of respect for the truth and their love of mankind determined to give the publicity they deserved to the actions of a man at once noble and a friend of the gods."

These are the very words used by Hierocles in his treatise against us which he has entitled " Lover of Truth."

Julian's Against the Galileans

But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius 66 and Sergius.

67 But if you can show me that one of these men is mentioned by the well-known writers of that time,----these events happened in the reign of Tiberius or Claudius,----then you may consider that I speak falsely about all matters.

No well known writer of antiquity wrote about Jesus and Paul up to the 4th century based on Hierocles and Julian.