When all you ever do is cherry pick, distort and misrepresent the positions of others, you criticising others for being uncivil will be met with the contempt it deserves.
You are in no position to cast stones tsig.
Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus
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When all you ever do is cherry pick, distort and misrepresent the positions of others, you criticising others for being uncivil will be met with the contempt it deserves.
You are in no position to cast stones tsig.
jhunter1163
beer-swilling semiliterate
It's a fair point that some professors may not want to jeopardize the future possibility of tenure, etc. by exploring or promoting the MJ theory, simply because it is so contrary to the established consensus in the field. I don't believe, though, that all professors would be so constrained. Revoking tenure is not something most universities do lightly. According to the AAUP wiki page, there are about 47,000 university professors and adjunct staff in the USA; only about 50 per year have tenure revoked for any reason.
JaysonR
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This is why the Historical Method assumed the positive and attempts to prove the negative (with few exceptions).
The standard is that, lacking any past pattern (Egyptian claims of battles won and how the wins went, for example; this is a known pattern, so lacking something like that), when something arrives as an account for something (we find a text which is appears to be a letter between X figure and Y figure, referencing A, B, C events, and Z figure), if the text itself passes as not a modern forgery (passes paleographic and forensic analysis), then the contents are accepted into the positive tentatively.
Then the comparisons begin whereby we look for names or events we know.
So if A, B, and C are known events, then we can compare their version of these events to other known accounts and see how well they hold to these accounts as a baseline for gauging how to receive this texts' accuracy in accounting.
If, on the other hand, A, B, and C are unknown events and figures X, Y, and Z are also unknown figures, then the entire text is simply entered into the positive record of the Historical Record and left alone.
For instance, the Turin King papyrus could, for all we know, be a completely ancient fabrication as the mass majority of that papyrus is unverified at this point, but the Historical society does not class it as that at all.
Instead, they accept it into the positive (since it was verified as not a modern forgery) and regularly rely on it as the single best source for the Chronology of the Kings of Egypt.
If we just ruled the other direction, as you noted quite accurately, we wouldn't accept this text and we wouldn't have very much in regards to the Chronology of the Kings of Egypt; some dynasties would simply be non-existent, in fact.
JaysonR
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If that is how I am coming across, then this is not my point.
I was only stating that it is not a good idea to toss out the Historical Method and rest everything on BT; which was how the Jesus discussion was venturing for a time before we gave tangent into the validity of BT itself.
Again, I have no issue with BT; I have issue with the idea of replacing the entire Historical Method with BT.
I don't think most folks are suggesting this is the offering.
Even Carrier, in his first book on the matter, doesn't offer this idea and only instead is offering BT as a way to frame logical deduction (almost offering BT for History like Truth Tables for Philosophy).
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JaysonR
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Beyond the Historical inheritance standing, and instead a verified proven?
Some verified archaeological finding would help, or if we could maybe one day be allowed to excavate the Temple Mount (not holding my breath), then we may (huge amount of doubt) find a few scraps of material that just might (so unlikely) survived the Temple Destruction and just maybe (oh so unlikely) one text might offer some record (not of Jesus, as that would be beyond amazing) of criminal cases or Law in some fashion helpful in aiding the account of movements in Judea at the time (it would help to know direct records from the Temple regarding these various uprising followings).
But ultimately, the Historical record accepts the existence by inheritance, and a negative having yet to be proven convincing enough.
That method seems to have succeeded so far on the average.
I just can't guarantee that reality always aligns with the Historical Method's inherited or deduced position (it has been wrong in both directions in the past; as all fields have been).
What?? Please, there are hundreds of hundreds of unknown events and unknown figures before and after Jesus which are considered mythological and left alone.
The angel Gabriel, Satan the Devil, the Holy Ghost, the God of the Jews, Roumlus, Remus, Perseus, Jupiter and hundreds more were left alone as myth.
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_gods_and_goddesses
The story of Jesus in the NT matches the vast amount of mythology in Jewish, Roman and Greek culture.
The problem here is as James Burke pointed out in Day the Universe Changed is that shifts in thinking are hard and scholars will hold on to the old theories like grim death.
Continental drift - proposed by Abraham Ortelius in 1596; accepted in 1958. In fact Scheidigger (1953), "Examination of the physics of theories of orogenesis", GSA Bulletin 64: 127—150 was the last formal rejection of the theory. In Carey, S. W. (1958), "The tectonic approach to continental drift", in Carey, S. W., Continental Drift—A symposium, Univ. of Tasmania, pp. 177—355 the scientific community finally got with the program. Time of acceptance of incorrect theory: 362 years.
The existence of Troy - proved by Schliemann who was a total amateur in archaeology. Later professionals have complained about the quality of his work equating it more to treasure hunting then true archaeology.
Heliocentrism - proposed by Philolaus (d. 390 BCE); accepted as a "mathematical convenience" by the Catholic Church during the Council of Trent (1545–1563) but when Galileo Galilei proved it in 1600 the Catholic Church couldn't suppress the information fast enough. The Catholic Church didn't accept heliocentrism as a reality until 1835. Only in 1992 did the Church finally admit it totally botched the handling of Galilei. Time of acceptance of incorrect theory: 1934 years if one is generous; 2224 is one is not.
The Norse colonization of the Americas - known nearly from the beginning through the "Eirik the Red's Saga" and the "Saga of the Greenlanders" both written about three centuries after the events happened. Dismissed largely because the experts saw it as harkening to the Imperial Synthesis Era of the 19th century. Finally accepted in the 1970s. Total denial time: about 900 years.
Big Bang theory; suggested or implied by John Philoponus (6th century), Abu Yūsuf Yaʻqūb ibn ʼIsḥāq aṣ-Ṣabbāḥ al-Kindī (9th century); Saʻadiah ben Yosef Gaon (9th to 10th century) Abū Ḥāmed Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (11th to 12th century) and Immanuel Kant (19th century); dismissed as crackpot as late as 1963! Total denial time: about 1300 years.
The acceptance of Homeopathy which even by the standards of 1796 made no scientific sense is still practiced despite study after study showing it does not work. Total denial time: 218 years and counting.
Not if anyone with common sense can see they are talking gibberish just as those who denied Continental drift for 362 years, Heliocentrism for over 1900 years, Big Bang theory for 1300 years, or those who claim Homeopathy works even after over 200 year of no actual evidence it does were or are.
I mean just use everyday common sense regarding an idea that basicly the less you dissolve something in water the more concentrated it becomes. How many doctors claim this makes sense? Far too many. Basic logic say the idea is insane.
Read Miner's "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" for a satirical example of just how unobjectivite people in the social sciences can be.
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How long was the denial before Historians started looking for the HJ? 1800 years?
So what?
You think the idea of a Jewish Rabbi around whom the stories grew is: gibberish and insane?
What makes you say that?
Do you think Historians and Anthropologists working in Academia today are unaware of this?
So "anyone with common sense" can see the professionals are "talking gibberish", can they? I read stuff like this in blogs promoting Cold Fusion and other free energy scams and lunacies. Do you know that heavier than air flight and the possibility of incandescent electric lamps and space travel were also rejected by the so called professionals, but the ordinary person with common sense soon taught these wise guy know alls a thing or too!
That's why you should put your dosh into our can't fail zero point energy scheme that's about to revolutionise the world! These so called brainy guys won't be laughing at us then, will they?
Depends on which denial you are talking about.
Recorded denial of the Jesus story goes back to Celsus c180 but we only have the rebuttal made nearly 100 years after Celsus was dead and gone so who knows how good (or bad) it was.
Justin Martyr himself admitted "When we say that Jesus Christ was produced without sexual union, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call the sons of Jupiter." so there is evidence of challenges to the Jesus story earlier then Celsus but we don't have the details.
As for the idea Jesus himself didn't exist remember as late as 1919 it was stated "Osiris, Attis, Adonis were men. They died as men; they rose as gods." (Hastings, James; John Alexander Selbie, Louis Herbert Gray (1919) Encyclopædia of religion and ethics, Volume 10) If Euhemerism is your go to then the idea that the figure may be fictional may not even occur to you.
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Did Celsus accuse Jesus of non-existence?
That's right. These stories are, among other things, an intrusion of pagan mythology into the gospel material. Some of the earlier people called sons of Gods in this magical pagan sense, like Alexander, were historical persons, but of course the divine paternity stories were untrue.
What data is that? Is the data in Philo, Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the elder, Pliny the younger.....?
Who mentioned Jesus of Nazareth? Who mentioned the Zealot, the little known itinerant preacher, the Cynic, the Rabble Rouser.
Jesus the anointed one in Josephus is NOT the little known itinerant preacher, the Zealot, the Cynic or the Rabble Rouser.
The vast majority of Scholars are whole cloth inventors since their HJ has NO EVIDENCE.
What about Jupiter? What about Romulus? What about Perseus? There are myth characters who are Sons of Gods.
The human father of Alexander the Great is known. Who was the father of the Son of God who walked on the sea, transfigured and resurrected?
So "anyone with common sense" can see the professionals are "talking gibberish", can they? I read stuff like this in blogs promoting Cold Fusion and other free energy scams and lunacies. Do you know that heavier than air flight and the possibility of incandescent electric lamps and space travel were also rejected by the so called professionals, but the ordinary person with common sense soon taught these wise guy know alls a thing or too!
That's why you should put your dosh into our can't fail zero point energy scheme that's about to revolutionise the world! These so called brainy guys won't be laughing at us then, will they?
The flaw here is that such schemes involve throwing around terms that the average John Q Public doesn't understand and worse generally doesn't go and find out more about.
Zero-point energy is a term lowest-energy state of a quantum mechanical system. Quantum mechanical systems work on the microscopic scale.
With this basic information John Q Public would be able to realize that the zero point energy scheme is bogus and just a mislabeling of the ever so popular (but impossible) perpetual motion gimmick.
Look at how apologists like Lee Strobel purposely confuse text reliability with historical reliability. Also they throw claims like 24,000 manuscript copies...all the while omitting the fact that nearly all these copies are younger then our oldest complete bibles.
The more you look at the HJ side of things the more Bermuda Triangle things look.
pakeha
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Dunno, Brainache.
Celsus was definitely NOT a fan, whatever the case.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/celsus.html
"It is clear to me that the writings of the Christians are a lie, and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction: I have heard that some of your interpreters...are on to the inconsistencies and, pen in hand, alter the originals writings, three, four and several more times over in order to be able to deny the contradictions in the face of criticism." -- Celsus, On the True Doctrine."
http://www.anthropoetics.ucla.edu/Ap0301/CELSUS.htm
"Celsus emphasizes both the sorcery, hence the superstition, of the Christians and their internecine fractiousness. "The Christians claim to get some sort of power from pronouncing the names of demons or saying certain incantations, always incorporating the name Jesus and a short story about him in the formula," Celsus writes (53); and while the men whom he calls "the Christian healers" do indeed have the expertise "to produce noisy crashes and effects" while "pretend[ing] to do miracles in Jesus' name," they nevertheless "conjure [only] by means of silks and curtains, numbers, stones, plants and the assorted paraphernalia that one expects of such people" (98). Profligate displays of this sort galvanize the unlettered and turn them not simply against society at large but against each other. Ostentation leads to mimesis which leads in turn to conflict. Celsus has noted that among those who denominate themselves Christians one can find many sharply distinct sects or cults, many of which regard one another with intense mutual hostility."
He seems like a pretty smart guy this Celsus.
He doesn't appear to be aware of any "Celestial" Jesus of the sort Richard Carrier has suggested, though.
eight bits
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Jayson
But that is the issue in the "historians for Jesus" controversy: Has a false positive occurred in this particular case? Given that you say flat out that historians court false positives over all, you cannot then complain that somebody more concerned to avoid a false positive in this case looks elsewhere for guidance.
That would be true even if you had adopted Bayesian methods to shape your error characteristic. Bayes would then have ensured that you were efficient and effective in accomplishing your inferential goal. The question of why anybody else would adopt that goal would remain open, and Bayes would not compel agreement or disagreement with your choice.
And so you choose to shape your error characteristic, avoiding false negatives in general, at the inevitable cost of enduring more false positives than necessary (and more false classifications overall). This has nothing to do with the merits of Bayesian methods; if you want to shape your error characteristic, then the theory allows that, too.
But that is the issue in the "historians for Jesus" controversy: Has a false positive occurred in this particular case? Given that you say flat out that historians court false positives over all, you cannot then complain that somebody more concerned to avoid a false positive in this case looks elsewhere for guidance.
That would be true even if you had adopted Bayesian methods to shape your error characteristic. Bayes would then have ensured that you were efficient and effective in accomplishing your inferential goal. The question of why anybody else would adopt that goal would remain open, and Bayes would not compel agreement or disagreement with your choice.
We should be clear that Carrier does not speak for the Bayesian community (probably nobody does, it's a diverse group). He is a scholar who sees the potential for some fairly specific improvements in historical discourse, and a role for Bayesian methods in accomplishing them. It does not follow that Carrier's recommendations establish the limits of potential Bayesian contributions in his domain.
The myth theory is not concerned with denying the possibility of a flesh and blood Jesus being involved in the Gospel account, but rather, "What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded." (1900 John M. Robertson. reiterated in 1946 by Archibald Robertson)
"This view (Christ Myth theory) states that the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology, possessing no more substantial claims to historical fact than the old Greek or Norse stories of gods and heroes..." (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J 1982, 1995 by Geoffrey W. Bromiley)
Jesus would be non-historical if the Gospel accounts were not more reliable then the stories of King Arthur (2004 Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall)
Stop trying to dodge the issue of what the Christ Myth theory (ie "non-existence" theory) really is.
I'm only talking about Richard Carrier's Myth Jesus. Not the accepted mainstream HJ which falls under your definition of "Myth".
I have said this before, why do I have to keep saying it?
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