Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Brainache]

Your statement is highly illogical. Christians believe THEIR HJ was the Christ.

So what? I don't believe there is any such thing as a "Christ", but Jewish Apocalyptic Preachers were common.

Your statement is highly illogical and baseless.

The argument that Jesus was a figure of mythology and had no real existence which is fully supported by the evidence will ultimately hasten the demise of Christianity as it is doing right now.

Once people understand that Jesus of Nazareth is not documented at all in the history of mankind outside of Apologetics then potential converts will not become Christians.

Your problem is that no one agrees with you, least of all Christians.

Read this blog by Richard Carrier whom you admire so much:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

Philosopher (and FtB alum) Dan Fincke has written a good, concise piece on why atheists need to don a little more sense and humility when claiming Jesus didn’t exist. In his article On Atheists Attempting to Disprove the Existence of the Historical Jesus, Fincke makes a sound case for two basic points: (1) amateurs should not be voicing certitude in a matter still being debated by experts (historicity agnosticism is far more defensible and makes far more sense for amateurs on the sidelines) and (2) criticizing Christianity with a lead of “Jesus didn’t even exist” is strategically ill conceived–it’s bad strategy on many levels, it only makes atheists look illogical, and (counter-intuitively) it can actually make Christians more certain of their faith.
I think his piece is a must-read. I’ll only briefly comment on some of its key arguments here...

 

[dejudge]

So what? I don't believe there is any such thing as a "Christ", but Jewish Apocalyptic Preachers were common.

What?? Are you not the same Brainache who is actively arguing that Jesus who was called Christ was the brother of James contrary to the very Church writings?

Your problem is that no one agrees with you, least of all Christians.

Your statement is proven false. The evidence from antiquity do not agree with your HJ.


Christian writers did NOT mention that Tacitus wrote about Jesus and admitted James was NOT the brother of Jesus.

Now, Christians do not agree that Jesus was just a little known itinerant preacher. Christians agree that he was the CHRIST.

Christians NOT agree with you that there is no such thing as a Christ

Read this blog by Richard Carrier whom you admire so much:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/4733

I asked you for evidence from antiquity for your UNKNOWN dead HJ. Where is the evidence?

it is not in Josephus--Read Chrysostom's Commentary of Galatians 1.19. Read The Recognitions, Read the Papias Fragments, Read Jerome's De viris Illustribus, Read Eusebius' Church History.

It has been exposed that Christians of antiquity do NOT agree with you.

 

[Brainache]

What?? Are you not the same Brainache who is actively arguing that Jesus who was called Christ was the brother of James contrary to the very Church writings?

It is quite consistent with the earliest sources.

Deal with it.

Your statement is proven false. The evidence from antiquity do not agree with your HJ.

You are the only person saying this.

Why?

Christian writers did NOT mention that Tacitus wrote about Jesus and admitted James was NOT the brother of Jesus.

Now, Christians do not agree that Jesus was just a little known itinerant preacher. Christians agree that he was the CHRIST.

Christians NOT agree with you that there is no such thing as a Christ



I asked you for evidence from antiquity for your UNKNOWN dead HJ. Where is the evidence?

it is not in Josephus--Read Chrysostom's Commentary of Galatians 1.19. Read The Recognitions, Read the Papias Fragments, Read Jerome's De viris Illustribus, Read Eusebius' Church History.

It has been exposed that Christians of antiquity do NOT agree with you.

This is really quite tiresome.

I wish you would learn something about the study of History.

 

[dejudge]

It is quite consistent with the earliest sources.

There are no sources, early or late, that state Jesus the Son of God WITHOUT a human father was the actual BLOOD brother of apostle James.

How illogical can you be!! The Church writers were furiously arguing that their Jesus was God Creator and born of Ghost yet you still claim the earliest sources show that James was the brother of Jesus.


The earliest recovered Jesus stories are from the 2nd century or later.

I wish you would learn something about the study of History.

Strange enough that is exactly what I wished you would learn.

I learned that Historians use credible Data to reconstruct the past but you use a compilation of myth fables without corroboration for your Jesus.

 

[SezMe]

If Jesus was known not to exist, or more realistically if it ever became very widely believed that Jesus was probably only a mythical figure, then that would clearly make it impossible for the modern-day church to continue preaching the "truth" of the bible.

I think you are creating a cause -> effect relationship here that would not exist in your hypothetical scenario. If it was "widely believed" that Jesus was a myth, the the christian church would already be in deep doo-doo. IOW, the church would have to be in serious decline for the condition "widely believed" to even exist.

 

[zugzwang]

I think you are creating a cause -> effect relationship here that would not exist in your hypothetical scenario. If it was "widely believed" that Jesus was a myth, the the christian church would already be in deep doo-doo. IOW, the church would have to be in serious decline for the condition "widely believed" to even exist.

It's also interesting to consider the status of a mythical or purely celestial Jesus in the first century, or the second, if someone wants to shift it. It would mean that there was a recognizable 'MJ' group, wouldn't it, who explicitly worshipped a celestial Jesus, who was known not to be a historic figure?

Presumably then, this began to shift to a more historic framework - but still, the MJ people would be known about and remembered, wouldn't they? One would also think that there would be conflict between the two factions, and mutual recriminations and accusations of heresy.

Is there any trace of this kind of stuff? That's a genuine question, as I have no idea. I suppose you can see Paul and John as 'celestial' believers, maybe, and of course, the docetists could be brought in here.

 

[pakeha]

...In a recent post in another thread one of the posters here (I think it was CraigB, but he can correct me if it was someone else), said something to the effect of it being absurd to think that Christians would care about whether Jesus did what is claimed in the bible, because he said that Christians already know the miracles can’t be true and yet they still believe in Jesus just the same.

But on the contrary, many Christians, and probably almost all really devout and evangelical fundamentalist Christians, actually do believe that the miracles really happened. For example, even the last archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams), in an YouTube interview with Richard Dawkins, said that he does believe that Jesus literally raised Lazarus back from the dead! And he also believes in the virgin birth! Even though that is now known to be a simple mistake of translation in the Septuagint Greek copying of the original Hebrew!

I think it’s undeniable that if we ever get to a point where there is large majority recognition that evidence and argument had shown that Jesus was very probably only a fictional figure, who therefore could never have done anything claimed in the bible (miraculous or otherwise), that would be extremely damaging to a current day Christian church trying to preach the entire opposite and insisting that people believe in a Jesus and a bible that they all recognised as probably untrue. To suggest otherwise seems to me quite delusional.

While I agree with you on the delusional, facts would seems to prove us wrong, IanS.
Just look at the number of people in the States, according to the stats available, who believe the biblical account of creation trumps the BB and the known evolution of our planet.
I personally know at least one Christian who firmly believes anything that appears to contradict the story of Noah's Ark is a devil's snare.

 

[IanS]

I think you are creating a cause -> effect relationship here that would not exist in your hypothetical scenario. If it was "widely believed" that Jesus was a myth, the the christian church would already be in deep doo-doo. IOW, the church would have to be in serious decline for the condition "widely believed" to even exist.

That just seems to be agreeing with what I said.

I did not say any such change would happen instantly. I said it would probably be something that took place slowly over many decades, and against a great deal of religious resistance.

But you could hardly have a situation where the church continued to preach to the congregation it’s claims of absolute truth in Jesus and the bible, whilst at the same time having to admit that it was probably fiction.

And that is precisely what we are discussing here. Namely - is there good reason to think Jesus was real. Or alternatively, good reason to think the stories may well have only ever been nothing more than superstitious legend.

 

[pakeha]

...
I did not say any such change would happen instantly. I said it would probably be something that took place slowly over many decades, and against a great deal of religious resistance. ...

I'll agree with the over time caveat, IanS.
Still, the thing is stats suggest there are a lot of people think their immortal souls are in jeopardy if they deny the historicity of Jesus or are convinced there is so little truth to the story it makes no difference as to whether the mythological trappings were hung on a particuar human, á la Euhemerus, or whether the mythological trappings were hung on the story of particular human.

 

[IanS]

While I agree with you on the delusional, facts would seems to prove us wrong, IanS.
Just look at the number of people in the States, according to the stats available, who believe the biblical account of creation trumps the BB and the known evolution of our planet.
I personally know at least one Christian who firmly believes anything that appears to contradict the story of Noah's Ark is a devil's snare.

That's not a comparable situation though.

Evolution does not explain (and does not try to explain) how life began from non-living chemicals (personally I think the answer is fairly obvious, but that's a different thread entirely). So the church can easily maintain, as indeed it actually does, that although it now accepts that species evolution is true, nevertheless they say that God set the conditions in motion such that life could and would necessarily be the result.

In that same YouTube video that I mentioned above where Richard Dawkins interviews the Archbishop of Canterbury (Rowan Williams), that is precisely what Rowan Williams claimed. He said, and I quote from memory "Evolution, it's a perfectly good theory, but it is God who set everything in motion, so that all life would arise from that”. Ie he is saying that evolution is really irrelevant, because its is God who produced evolution so that it would lead to all life on earth.

The same is true of the BB - science now has a very good description of the BB, right back to within almost the Plank Time (10*-43 sec. after the “bang”), but we do not yet have a really clear or agreed explanation of why the bang happened or why the energy conditions existed in the first place (though again, personally I think the most recent published explanations of Hawking, Vilenkin and others come very close to that). So devout theists can easily continue to argue that quote “science cannot explain what caused the bang, and we say God is the cause”.

Creationists, ie just fundamentalist Christians and Muslims can argue like that indefinitely. Or at least until such time that science establishes the explanation for life and for the complete origin of our universe to the status of “Theory”. At that stage, what happens is that, as I actually said above, really devout current day theists do of course continue to deny absolutely everything, but eventually it gets to the stage where the church itself cannot continue to deny such things without losing all credibility … thus for example, the Vatican only quite recently made statements saying it does now officially accept that evolution is true (that took 150 years).

But all of that is very different from a situation in which the specific figure who underpins their preaching of the bible, is found to be fictional. If Jesus is agreed to be fictional, then the entire basis of the church teaching & it's belief, disappears.

The church could try to distance itself from a fictional Jesus, as if it had not for 2000 years used that as the sole and entire basis of it’s existence, and claim instead that the figure it’s beliefs were really based on was God himself, and where an imaginary God of that type is literally impossible to disprove (you can’t find direct evidence of a God’s non-existence). But that would make a complete mockery of everything that the Christian church had claimed and preached for 2000 years where it has maintained that it’s entire reason for existence is that Jesus existed as described in the holy bible, and where people like Paul and the gospel writers really did know about a messiah from God who walked the earth at their time …

… the church could not continue to maintain that it’s sole and entire message, ie the preaching of absolute truth in Jesus and the holy bible, should still be believed by everyone, even though that same church was also saying the story was fictional.

It could, as I say, try telling people that they must now believe only in God and ignore what for 2000 years it had always sworn was the absolutely essential message & divine truth of Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible, but that would leave the church in a position of such undiluted hypocrisy and openly admitted deceit so blatant that it would be very difficult (understatement of all time lol) to attract new generations into believing an admitted dishonesty so obvious and undisputed even by the church itself. That would be an utterly absurd position for the church, and an absurd position for anyone here to deny.

 

[pakeha]

I can see what you're talking about, of course.
And I'll grant you the right in all of it.

Still, if I take anything away from these threads, it's an affirmation of what Bart Ehrman wrote in Misquoting Jesus, to the effect there's an abysmal difference between what is taught and discussed at the uni level and what filters down to the pews.

Take the story of the Adulterous Woman, for example. perhaps the best-beloved Jesus story.
It's utterly false, as we know.

When do you reckon there'll be Christian publications explaining that to the general public?
Or Rowan Williams will preach that Christ's salvation doesn't depend on the truthiness of the texts used?

 

[Stone]

I can see what you're talking about, of course.
And I'll grant you the right in all of it.

Still, if I take anything away from these threads, it's an affirmation of what Bart Ehrman wrote in Misquoting Jesus, to the effect there's an abysmal difference between what is taught and discussed at the uni level and what filters down to the pews.

Take the story of the Adulterous Woman, for example. perhaps the best-beloved Jesus story.
It's utterly false, as we know.

When do you reckon there'll be Christian publications explaining that to the general public?
Or Rowan Williams will preach that Christ's salvation doesn't depend on the truthiness of the texts used?

Pakeha,

You still haven't addressed this --

"Because you didn't provide a specific ancient cite for your large assertion that Tacitus only had second-hand sources at best for the Tiberius years. How do you know that? To address that, you only referenced the monster thread at RatSkep in general. I'm quite familiar with the RatSkep thread, thank you. I am also familiar with some of the overly convenient assertions by some there that Tacitus never had better than second-hand sources for the Tiberius years. But I'd be extremely surprised if anyone searching that thread can actually dredge up a specific ancient cite that can demonstrate that Tacitus had no better than second-hand sources for the Tiberius years.

Can you point to one such cite?

Stone "

Yes, you say you apparently swallowed something over in RatSkep. But you haven't said precisely where and what and you haven't addressed this:

"if anyone searching that thread can actually dredge up a specific ancient cite that can demonstrate that Tacitus had no better than second-hand sources for the Tiberius years"

Stone

 

[dejudge]

Of course he wasn't "The Christ", that is something which does not exist, because God does not exist. Jesus could be nothing other than a human being.

Your statement is void of logic.

You seem not realize that your faulty logic suggests that God must be a human being.

"The Christ" is not human. If he isn't Human, he doesn't exist. Jesus is not "The Christ".

If he was human he was a Jewish Preacher.

If he wasn't human, he was an invention of Paul's.

If Paul invented him, how is it that the people he is writing to already know about Jesus and his Brother James?

You definitely have major deficiencies in Logic, knowledge of the NT, Apologetics and Non-Apologetic sources.

You seem unaware that Kings of the Jews and Jewish High Priest were CALLED CHRISTS [the anointed ones]

Examine the Chronicon Paschale,

Until Jannaeus, who was also called Alexander, there were annointed leaders; but with him the succession of high priests who led the nation came to an end. They were called Christs by the prophets.

King David was CHRIST [the Anointed] in the Bible.


It is rather pointless for you to be talking about CHRIST when you seem to have little or no idea what 'Christ' means.

Christ is derived from the Greek word meaning 'Anointed' and the word ' Christ' [the Anointed] predated the Jesus story by hundreds of years.

 

[Craig B]

... Christ is derived from the Greek word meaning 'Anointed' and the word ' Christ' [the Anointed] predated the Jesus story by hundreds of years.

And in all of these occurrences it designated a human being, like the Persian king Cyrus in Isaiah 45:1.

 

[IanS]

I can see what you're talking about, of course.
And I'll grant you the right in all of it.

Still, if I take anything away from these threads, it's an affirmation of what Bart Ehrman wrote in Misquoting Jesus, to the effect there's an abysmal difference between what is taught and discussed at the uni level and what filters down to the pews.

Take the story of the Adulterous Woman, for example. perhaps the best-beloved Jesus story.
It's utterly false, as we know.

When do you reckon there'll be Christian publications explaining that to the general public?
Or Rowan Williams will preach that Christ's salvation doesn't depend on the truthiness of the texts used?

I'm surprised you think anything like that is relevant. It's not what we are talking about at all.

The assumption here is that we reach a position where even the Christian church itself has to admit that Jesus was probably only a fictional figure, and hence the bible a work of fiction describing things that never happened (any of it). That is the assumption, for the sake of the current argument.

The question is - in that case; - would the church be able to just brush that away and keep preaching that Jesus and the bible were the most divine truth known to Man, whilst at the same time telling the same congregation that it was not true!

As far as what you say above is concerned -

- first of all I do not know what Bart Ehrman and others do teach in their bible studies classes in US universities. I have not sat through all his classes. And I don't suppose you have either?

- but we are not talking about that. We are supposing, for the sake of the argument, that church leaders DO come to a position of having to admit to their congregation that Jesus was probably mythical (regardless of whatever Ehrman teaches to his bible-studies students).

I don't know what the biblical story of the adulterous woman is (or was). But whether or not you and I think it's "utterly false", there is, as far as I know, nothing at present which requires church ministers to tell their congregation that the story is "utterly false".

However that is in no way relevant to the proposed situation of the church having to admit that Jesus was probably fictional. In that case you'd have a situation where (for the sake of argument) the preacher tells his Sunday congregation about the truth of a Jesus story in the bible, and then when asked about it by any parishioner he says that the true story is probably untrue! That would be a position so ludicrous and indefensible that it’s surely obvious that the church could no longer preach that divine truth of the Jesus stories saying they came from the Holy Book of divine truths.

As I said right at the start - in practice of course, the church would probably never admit Jesus could possibly have been fictional, for precisely the reason that I have just described, ie it's position would become a laughing stock. But the relevance is of course that all of this depends on quite how damaging the evidence against Jesus and the bible becomes, and quite how many people are eventually forced in all honesty to realise that the evidence for Jesus and the bible is thin to the point of vanishing ... I don't suppose for example that many people here who say that they believe only say 60:40 in Jesus, actually go to church very often in a state of believing in Jesus and wishing to accept the biblical truths being preached there (certainly not for people in European nations like the UK, though posters in the USA clearly live in a quite different Christian environment).

 

[dejudge]

And in all of these occurrences it designated a human being, like the Persian king Cyrus in Isaiah 45:1.

Well, I can show what is found in "To Autolycus" attributed to Theophilus of Antioch who was a Christian and did not mention anything at all about belief in Jesus Christ and nothing about the life of Jesus.

Theophilus who believed ONLY in God claimed he was a Christian because he was ANOINTED.

Theophilus To Autolycus 1

And about your laughing at me and calling me "Christian," you know not what you are saying.

First, because that which is anointed is sweet and serviceable, and far from contemptible. For what ship can be serviceable and seaworthy, unless it be first caulked [anointed]?

Or what castle or house is beautiful and serviceable when it has not been anointed? And what man, when he enters into this life or into the gymnasium, is not anointed with oil? And what work has either ornament or beauty unless it be anointed and burnished? Then the air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort anointed by light and spirit; and are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God?

Wherefore we are called Christians on this account, because we are anointed with the oil of God.

To Autolycus 1 is evidence that there were Christians who BELIEVED they were Anointed and NOT because of the crucifixion and resurrection story of Jesus.

To Autolycus has also destroyed ALL claims that the existence of Christians must be associated with an HJ.

 

[Craig B]

Well, I can show what is found in "To Autolycus" attributed to Theophilus of Antioch who was a Christian and did not mention anything at all about belief in Jesus Christ and nothing about the life of Jesus.

Theophilus who believed ONLY in God claimed he was a Christian because he was ANOINTED.

Theophilus To Autolycus 1

To Autolycus 1 is evidence that there were Christians who BELIEVED they were Anointed and NOT because of the crucifixion and resurrection story of Jesus.

To Autolycus has also destroyed ALL claims that the existence of Christians must be associated with an HJ.

Can you please in the name of pity (I know the risk I'm taking asking this, but anyway) explain what any of the above irrelevant nonsense has to do with the OT references to the "anointed" or "christ" being to a mortal human, and not to a god. And even later in 135 AD

The revolt erupted as a result of religious and political tensions in Judaea province. Simon bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, was regarded by many Jews as the Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel.

Exactly so. In no way a god.

 

[The Norseman]

...[h]owever that is in no way relevant to the proposed situation of the church having to admit that Jesus was probably fictional. In that case you'd have a situation where (for the sake of argument) the preacher tells his Sunday congregation about the truth of a Jesus story in the bible, and then when asked about it by any parishioner he says that the true story is probably untrue! That would be a position so ludicrous and indefensible that it’s surely obvious that the church could no longer preach that divine truth of the Jesus stories saying they came from the Holy Book of divine truths.

As I said right at the start - in practice of course, the church would probably never admit Jesus could possibly have been fictional, for precisely the reason that I have just described, ie it's position would become a laughing stock. But the relevance is of course that all of this depends on quite how damaging the evidence against Jesus and the bible becomes, and quite how many people are eventually forced in all honesty to realise that the evidence for Jesus and the bible is thin to the point of vanishing ... I don't suppose for example that many people here who say that they believe only say 60:40 in Jesus, actually go to church very often in a state of believing in Jesus and wishing to accept the biblical truths being preached there (certainly not for people in European nations like the UK, though posters in the USA clearly live in a quite different Christian environment).

There are bunches of congregations and clergy who do not teach the bible as a book of divine truths. The best way I've heard is that the bible is a series of stories written to tell us about our relationship with God (I use the familiar though I am igtheistic). I was taught that the bible was a way to raise questions and for us to try and find answers. I was raised ELCA Lutheran (as opposed to Missouri Synod Lutheran) so that may help explain this position, but I dunno.

As far as Jesus existing, yes, I think it'd make a large impact on the Lutheran church. But that's just my lay opinion.

 

[Brainache]

There are bunches of congregations and clergy who do not teach the bible as a book of divine truths. The best way I've heard is that the bible is a series of stories written to tell us about our relationship with God (I use the familiar though I am igtheistic). I was taught that the bible was a way to raise questions and for us to try and find answers. I was raised ELCA Lutheran (as opposed to Missouri Synod Lutheran) so that may help explain this position, but I dunno.

As far as Jesus existing, yes, I think it'd make a large impact on the Lutheran church. But that's just my lay opinion.

The main problem I see is that while ever they are Christian, they won't buy MJ. Even if you had cast iron-clad evidence that Paul invented the whole thing (or whatever), it would not be accepted.

They have to stop believing in Jesus before they would even consider the concept, so you are wasting your time, if you think this will turn people away from Church who weren't turned away already.

I'm not saying anything about the truth or falsity of the MJ arguments here, only that they won't work on Christians.

 

[The Norseman]

The main problem I see is that while ever they are Christian, they won't buy MJ. Even if you had cast iron-clad evidence that Paul invented the whole thing (or whatever), it would not be accepted.

They have to stop believing in Jesus before they would even consider the concept, so you are wasting your time, if you think this will turn people away from Church who weren't turned away already.

I'm not saying anything about the truth or falsity of the MJ arguments here, only that they won't work on Christians.

True 'nuf!