Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[pakeha]

True enough, eight bits.
And that's especially true when I read the context of Paul's comments

7 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

This sounds like a return to the strictest laws of marriage.
Yet wasn't it Jesus who reportedly said
27 ...The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Mark 2:27 (NIV)

It sounds like Jesus was cherry-picking the Laws which he felt were important to follow.

 

[Brainache]

True enough, eight bits.
And that's especially true when I read the context of Paul's comments

7 Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.

8 Now to the unmarried[a] and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. 9 But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. 11 But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife.

12 To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. 13 And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. 14 For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

15 But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. 16 How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

This sounds like a return to the strictest laws of marriage.
Yet wasn't it Jesus who reportedly said
27 ...The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Mark 2:27 (NIV)

It sounds like Jesus was cherry-picking the Laws which he felt were important to follow.

He was actually issuing new commandments:

10 To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord):...

I think the stuff about the Sabbath shows the Pauline influence on gMark.

Paul wasn't above issuing his own commandments as well:

To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord):...

He's making it up as he goes along!

 

[Stone]

pakeha


Well... it was sexually symmetric.

1 Corinthians 7: 10-11

To the married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): A wife should not separate from her husband - and if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband - and a husband should not divorce his wife.

The earliest Gospel version we have of the teaching referenced, Mark 10: 2-12 is also sexually symmetric, even though the question posed apparently wasn't, according to our informant:

The Pharisees approached and asked, “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?” They were testing him.

He said to them in reply, “What did Moses command you?”

They replied, “Moses permitted him to write a bill of divorce and dismiss her.”

But Jesus told them, “Because of the hardness of your hearts he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female..For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, no human being must separate.”

In the house the disciples again questioned him about this. He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”

Good catch, 8bits. Thank you. In fact, I should have cited 7:10-11 of 1 Corinthians in my posting, not just 7:10. Evidently, Paul is showing Jesus as maintaining some sort of symmetry just as the Mark narrator is. By my overlooking 7:11 I was giving a false impression of one of the few direct Jesus quotes that Paul provides.

Cheers,

Stone

 

[eight bits]

Stone

Thank you for the kind words. I think the verses are significant for the "HJ controversy" because they show Jesus as an active interpreter of the Hebrew tradition, from the very earliest surviving writing about Jesus, rather than some strictly derivative conduit of that tradition. The corresponding early Gospel builds on that: not only does Jesus avowedly make "new law," but also places Moses' authority as an active human , rather than a passive conduit of divine instruction. And, of course, all of this positions Jesus as at least Moses' peer.

Pakeha's example (Matthew 2: 27) from a few decades later, about a key distinctive feature of Judaism, a holy day of the week, also has that active, rather than passive-derivative, quality. As to pakeha's summary,

This sounds like a return to the strictest laws of marriage.

I think that it isn't a "return" at all, but a reinterpretation of the scriptural foundation to arrive at a novel legal doctrine: undeniably Jewish, but not part of Jewish legal heritage.

It sounds like Jesus was cherry-picking the Laws which he felt were important to follow.

Coincidentally, a few months ago I had a long contentious exchange with another poster here about the "spirit" of the (modern American) law versus its "letter." While I disagree that in Ameican law, the "spirit" ever trumps validly enacted black letters to the contrary, the position is obviously tenable, since the other poster held it.

Lucky for me, the other poster wasn't the Son of God.

But I think that is what Jesus was doing: teaching a "spirit of the law" approach to Judaism that would completely trump any Pharisaic "fence around the Torah" regulations (observances that exceed the written law's requirements to ensure that the written law isn't violated, even inadvertantly), and occasionally trump even the letter of the law itself.

On balance, I don't know whether Jesus' result was "stricter" or "looser" oerall than scrupulous observance of the letter of the law. But on divorce and remarriage specifically, it is stricter.

 

[IanS]

pakeha


Well... it was sexually symmetric.

1 Corinthians 7: 10-11

To the married, however, I give this instruction (not I, but the Lord): A wife should not separate from her husband - and if she does separate she must either remain single or become reconciled to her husband - and a husband should not divorce his wife.

Good catch, 8bits. Thank you. In fact, I should have cited 7:10-11 of 1 Corinthians in my posting, not just 7:10. Evidently, Paul is showing Jesus as maintaining some sort of symmetry just as the Mark narrator is. By my overlooking 7:11 I was giving a false impression of one of the few direct Jesus quotes that Paul provides.

Cheers,

Stone

However in that quote (highlighted) the author (“Paul”) does not say that he is quoting something that he knows to have been said by Jesus, is he?

The author simply says that he is giving an instruction which he says somehow came to him from “the Lord”.

What or who did Paul mean by the “Lord”? And, where did the author get that idea from?

In the letters, Paul repeatedly stresses that he has no such information from any man, but instead says that all such information comes to him from what he believes was once written in ancient OT scripture and from what he believed to be his visions and “voices” from a God/Jesus/Lord in heaven.

So as far as we can tell, Paul is not actually quoting anything which he personally knew to have been actually said by any living Jesus on Earth. Instead what he is doing is preaching a theology which believes on the basis of scripture.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

However in that quote (highlighted) the author (“Paul”) does not say that he is quoting something that he knows to have been said by Jesus, is he?

Nor does he quote anyone else, either. So, we're presumably in agreement.

In the letters, Paul repeatedly stresses that he has no such information from any man, ...

So you repeatedly say, but somehow Paul manages not to, despite your best efforts. He says that received his gospel from no man, and then recites the gospel he was talking about on that occasion, Galatians 1 onto 2. Fascinating though that passage is, it has nothing to do with the sources of his writing about marraige, divorce and remarriage to another audience on another occasion, which writing is our present concern.

So as far as we can tell, Paul is not actually quoting anything which he personally knew to have been actually said by any living Jesus on Earth. Instead what he is doing is preaching a theology which believes on the basis of scripture.

Actually, Paul's directives contradict Jewish scripture to whatever extent they were transmitted to Jews (for example, if taught by Jesus), and the Jewish marriage laws never bound Gentiles living outside Jewish controlled territory. Whatever Paul's source for instructing Gentiles may be, then, we can eliminate derivative transmission of Jewish scripture.

 

[The Norseman]

So you repeatedly say, but somehow Paul manages not to, despite your best efforts. He says that received his gospel from no man, and then recites the gospel he was talking about on that occasion, Galatians 1 onto 2. Fascinating though that passage is, it has nothing to do with the sources of his writing about marraige, divorce and remarriage to another audience on another occasion, which writing is our present concern.

You're still making an unwarranted assumption then that there was still some Yeshua figure that said these things for Paul to write down. Maybe the best answer still is that we don't know and simply leave it at that. Unfortunately, these scholars do a whole truckload of assuming and guessing and then proclaiming it as truth.

Actually, Paul's directives contradict Jewish scripture to whatever extent they were transmitted to Jews (for example, if taught by Jesus), and the Jewish marriage laws never bound Gentiles living outside Jewish controlled territory. Whatever Paul's source for instructing Gentiles may be, then, we can eliminate derivative transmission of Jewish scripture.

Or he could have made it up himself.

 

[eight bits]

Norseman

You're still making an unwarranted assumption then that there was still some Yeshua figure that said these things for Paul to write down.

Paul distinguishes between the Lord and himself in the snippet we've been discussing. There's nothing in anything I've written that requires Jesus to be a real human being, or which denies that the proximate authors of what we have in hand are Paul and "Mark," talking about Jesus. He is a literary character, regardless of origin, and here is literature which depicts him saying and doing something interesting. There's no assumption about him actually having spoken there, unwarranted or otherwise.

 

[IanS]

Ian

So you repeatedly say, but somehow Paul manages not to, despite your best efforts. He says that received his gospel from no man, and then recites the gospel he was talking about on that occasion, Galatians 1 onto 2. Fascinating though that passage is, it has nothing to do with the sources of his writing about marraige, divorce and remarriage to another audience on another occasion, which writing is our present concern..

So you disagree with that? You deny that Paul letters say that his information about the “lord” comes from no man but from scripture and from received messages from “the lord”? That’s a dead lord by the way (if he means “Jesus”). You disagree with that and say instead that Paul tells us he got his information from meeting people who personally knew & heard Jesus say any of these thing?

OK, so where is it in Paul’s letters that you say he tells us about his conversations with the informants who had met Jesus? Where does Paul say that?

Ian
Actually, Paul's directives contradict Jewish scripture to whatever extent they were transmitted to Jews (for example, if taught by Jesus), and the Jewish marriage laws never bound Gentiles living outside Jewish controlled territory. Whatever Paul's source for instructing Gentiles may be, then, we can eliminate derivative transmission of Jewish scripture.

What’s said in “Paul’s” letters (whoever wrote those) might have contradicted anything. But that’s entirely beside the point here. Here the essential point is that Paul believed, as he himself repeatedly tells us (do you deny that?), that what he believed about Jesus was what he believed to be written in scripture. He thought that what he preached about Jesus was “in accordance with scripture”.

But if Stone or you yourself disagree with that and say as Stone did (see my reply above) that the example you quoted was an example Paul directly quoting something that Jesus actually said, then perhaps you can quote from Paul’s letter where he explains how he knew the actual words he could quote from the by then dead Jesus? I don’t think Paul’s letter does claim any such thing, does it? Where is that claimed by Paul?

 

[Brainache]

Maybe it has something to do with what Paul means by "Gospel" as opposed to "Scripture".

As I understand it "Gospel" means something like "Good news of a victory", whereas "Scripture" means what was written a long time ago by Prophets.

So the "good news" about "Christ's victory" over death is what Paul got from "no man".

He doesn't tell us where he got the rest of his info about Jesus, except that he notes he met the Lord's Brother and stayed two weeks with Peter. I'm guessing they didn't just talk about the weather.

 

[The Norseman]

Norseman


Paul distinguishes between the Lord and himself in the snippet we've been discussing. There's nothing in anything I've written that requires Jesus to be a real human being, or which denies that the proximate authors of what we have in hand are Paul and "Mark," talking about Jesus. He is a literary character, regardless of origin, and here is literature which depicts him saying and doing something interesting. There's no assumption about him actually having spoken there, unwarranted or otherwise.

Okay, maybe I was misunderstanding your point then.

 

[The Norseman]

Maybe it has something to do with what Paul means by "Gospel" as opposed to "Scripture".

As I understand it "Gospel" means something like "Good news of a victory", whereas "Scripture" means what was written a long time ago by Prophets.

So the "good news" about "Christ's victory" over death is what Paul got from "no man".

He doesn't tell us where he got the rest of his info about Jesus, except that he notes he met the Lord's Brother and stayed two weeks with Peter. I'm guessing they didn't just talk about the weather.

Yes, exactly! Guessing is all we apparently have to go on because the little text that actually remains, talks about things and makes assumptions that would be clear in a culture that hasn't existed for thousands of years. I find it rather silly that people in the 20th and 21st centuries (mainly) claim to know what was really meant. Sure, one can always claim "context" but the hard truth of it is, no one really can ever know for sure and I get awfully tired of people breathlessly proclaiming that, no! what is Really meant is the TRUTH. (Please know that I'm not putting your comments into this category; just springboarding off of your post.)

 

[IanS]

Maybe it has something to do with what Paul means by "Gospel" as opposed to "Scripture".

As I understand it "Gospel" means something like "Good news of a victory", whereas "Scripture" means what was written a long time ago by Prophets.

So the "good news" about "Christ's victory" over death is what Paul got from "no man".

He doesn't tell us where he got the rest of his info about Jesus, except that he notes he met the Lord's Brother and stayed two weeks with Peter. I'm guessing they didn't just talk about the weather.

I think Paul's letters say that it comes to him "according to scripture" (not something he read in someone else's earlier "gospel"). I don't think there is any dispute about that.

 

[eight bits]

Ian

So you disagree with that?

With what? I stated my position. If you have your usual question set, then feel free to consult any of our earlier fruitless and repetitive exchanges on the identical points. There is no need for either of us to type all of that over again; none of it has changed in the few weeks since last time.

But if Stone or you yourself disagree with that and say as Stone did (see my reply above) that the example you quoted ...

If you had questions about what Stone wrote, then you should be pursuing your questions with Stone. Obviously, I can't help you with whatever questions you have for somebody else, nor, for that matter, what I would have meant had I written something other than what I did write, which somebody else wrote instead, but they haven't yet explained what they wrote to your satisfaction. If you see what I mean.

Brainache

Maybe it has something to do with what Paul means by "Gospel" as opposed to "Scripture".

Yes, maybe it does.

So the "good news" about "Christ's victory" over death is what Paul got from "no man".

Or, very possibly, even more specifically for what he wrote that he got from no man, you might check out Galatians 2: 15, or so, and following.

He doesn't tell us where he got the rest of his info about Jesus, except that he notes he met the Lord's Brother and stayed two weeks with Peter. I'm guessing they didn't just talk about the weather.

Nicely observed. You might add that he had adverse dealings with the Way before his conversion, continuing controversy with a variety of competing teachers, a market sharing meeting with Peter, James and John, and a slapdown with Peter in Antioch.

My guess is that somewhere in all of that, a few Jesus stories may have come up. Paul doesn't say otherwise. Ever.

 

[pakeha]

...
So let's see what you've got on this list...
I'm guessing there must be something special about the original Greek, because these verses don't look too special in English to me.

I see your point, Brainache.
Apparently those texts, rather than say anything remarkable, point to a single author, one that Stone feels is an historical Jesus, correct me if I'm wrong.

...But I think that is what Jesus was doing: teaching a "spirit of the law" approach to Judaism that would completely trump any Pharisaic "fence around the Torah" regulations (observances that exceed the written law's requirements to ensure that the written law isn't violated, even inadvertantly), and occasionally trump even the letter of the law itself. ...

Thanks for your take on that, eight bits.
Off to learn the difference between the recorded Jesus teachings and others, especially Hillel.
I suspect it will be the End Times/Apocalyptic material in Jesus' earliest teachings.
I'll soon find out.

 

[IanS]

Ian


With what? I stated my position. If you have your usual question set, then feel free to consult any of our earlier fruitless and repetitive exchanges on the identical points. There is no need for either of us to type all of that over again; none of it has changed in the few weeks since last time.


If you had questions about what Stone wrote, then you should be pursuing your questions with Stone. Obviously, I can't help you with whatever questions you have for somebody else, nor, for that matter, what I would have meant had I written something other than what I did write, which somebody else wrote instead, but they haven't yet explained what they wrote to your satisfaction. If you see what I mean.

Well cutting through the above gobbledygook - what you actually mean is that you cannot disagree with what I just said to you in post #469. Namely that, despite Stone taking your post #460 as an example of Paul quoting the words of Jesus, and despite you then thanking him for his kind words (post #464), in fact Paul's letter is not quoting words actually spoken by Jesus, is it.

Instead, as I said above - as far as we can honestly tell, Paul's letters are simply preaching a theology which Paul believed on the basis of what he thought was the correct interpretation of OT scripture (a scripture which stretched back at least 500 years before anyone ever mentioned Jesus).

 

[eight bits]

Ian

Instead, as I said above - as far as we can honestly tell, Paul's letters are simply preaching a theology which Paul believed on the basis of what he thought was the correct interpretation of OT scripture (a scripture which stretched back at least 500 years before anyone ever mentioned Jesus).

Or, to be more concise, Paul was a Jewish preacher. What controversy is there in that? He says he's Jewish, he speaks highly of his scriptural mastery, and he's obviously preaching. So, what else would you like to talk about?

That I thanked another poster for using kind words? That's no concern of yours. That you would prefer another poster had chosen a different word to describe a passage that is plainly available for anybody to examine? You've made your objection. If there's more that needs to be said, then that sounds like a job for a PM - addressed to the other poster, not to me.

 

[IanS]

Ian


Or, to be more concise, Paul was a Jewish preacher. What controversy is there in that? He says he's Jewish, he speaks highly of his scriptural mastery, and he's obviously preaching. So, what else would you like to talk about?

That I thanked another poster for using kind words? That's no concern of yours. That you would prefer another poster had chosen a different word to describe a passage that is plainly available for anybody to examine? You've made your objection. If there's more that needs to be said, then that sounds like a job for a PM - addressed to the other poster, not to me.

Well, I'll decide for myself whether I should comment on your posts thanking Stone for a reply in which he says you were pointing out that Paul had quoted the words of Jesus. I'll decide what I say about that thanks.

But if you post a quote from Paul's letter 1-Corinthians, and Stone replies to your post thanking you for pointing out that Paul is quoting the words of Jesus, then why did you reply simply thanking him but without correcting that mistaken conclusion? Why didn't your reply say that Paul was probably not actually quoting what he knew to have been said by Jesus?

I'm simply pointing out that if between the two of you, you let that conclusion pass, saying it was an example of Paul knowing the words of an earthly Jesus, then that is (afaik) untrue and needs to be corrected, doesn't it.

So can we be clear about this - do you say that in 1-Corinthians Paul is actually quoting what he knows to be the words of a real earthly HJ? Or not? Because I don’t think you can conclude any such thing from Paul’s letters.

I’m not interested in arguing with you on any of this. And especially not about "who said what". But I am concerned about letting untrue claims like this pass uncontested if they are being offered as evidence of a real earthly Jesus.

 

[Stone]

Well, I'll decide for myself whether I should comment on your posts thanking Stone for a reply in which he says you were pointing out that Paul had quoted the words of Jesus. I'll decide what I say about that thanks.

But if you post a quote from Paul's letter 1-Corinthians, and Stone replies to your post thanking you for pointing out that Paul is quoting the words of Jesus, then why did you reply simply thanking him but without correcting that mistaken conclusion? Why didn't your reply say that Paul was probably not actually quoting what he knew to have been said by Jesus?

I'm simply pointing out that if between the two of you, you let that conclusion pass, saying it was an example of Paul knowing the words of an earthly Jesus, then that is (afaik) untrue and needs to be corrected, doesn't it.

So can we be clear about this - do you say that in 1-Corinthians Paul is actually quoting what he knows to be the words of a real earthly HJ? Or not? Because I don’t think you can conclude any such thing from Paul’s letters.

I’m not interested in arguing with you on any of this. And especially not about "who said what". But I am concerned about letting untrue claims like this pass uncontested if they are being offered as evidence of a real earthly Jesus.

Personally, I believe it is exceedingly clear that Paul is intentionally producing a direct quote from Jesus the human rabbi. His "not I but the Lord" is a dead giveaway. I also find it exceedingly amusing that Ian appears livid at my having offered my thanks for a correction by another poster as to the start and stop of Paul's apparent quote from Jesus.

In fact, in general, I've been struck all over again by the heated feelings (in which I'm one of the worst offenders) that this topic engenders. In the huge RatSkep thread, the feelings on both sides are, if anything, even more heated than here. It may come down to something quite typical in human nature: To wit, many people tend to get especially mad if they feel they've been had. As has been pointed out at RatSkep, many of the mythers tend to be disillusioned fundies -- not all, just many. Consequently, many of them are figures who were extremely invested at one time in what subsequently was cause for bitter disillusion. The resulting animus is pretty understandable.

Likewise, some posters like myself, or RatSkep posters like Tim, RD and quite a few others, were at first highly intrigued by the "facts" uncovered by the mythers -- in fact, inclined to credit a good deal of the myther "scholarship" -- until closer inspection shewed that extreme massaging of the data was needed to support the myther conclusions. It's not just me who has become madder than a wet hen at the ignorant distortions that emerge on closer inspection. Tim and RD at RatSkep get downright withering. I think it's the same feeling involved as with "lapsed fundies": people feel furious at having invested in something where they were had, and they lash out because frequently years of their lives were involved in a lie.

Now, for some still-believing mythers and fundies alike -- some -- this description makes no sense because for them there is only an either/or: Jesus the magic abracadabra guy of orthodox Christianity, or a totally made up character from scratch. The notion that uninformed woo overwhelms both perspectives is foreign to them. That doesn't change the fact that uninformed woo indeed suffuses both perspectives and that those disillusioned after imbibing so much Kool-Aid on either side have every reason to be downright livid.

Stone

 

[pakeha]

I'm still reading about the parallels between the teachings of Rabbi Hillel and Jesus.
I found a striking coincidence between the two which concerns a teaching I quoted myself just up-thread.


35. "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."
Jesus

35. "The Sabbath has been delivered into your power, not you into the power of the Sabbath."

You can find a great many more parallels here
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/rio/rio10.htm

Reading over that site, it occurred to me that perhaps Stone's core teachings of Jesus, indicative of an individual's thought, aren't actually Hillel's.
Obviously my conjecture is hardly original and I'd be interested in reading Stone's reasoning as to why those core teachings attributed to Jesus aren't taken directly from Hillel.