Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Brainache]

Getting back to the main subject of this thread, "Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus," I find it quite surprising that he believes the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot to be historical.

Crikey!
I thought Judas was a kind of stand-in for a faction. ie Sicarii. Iscariot/Sicarios. Generally bad guys, as far as the Gospels are concerned. He is even named after the most famous Zealot of all, Judas The Galilean.

I really think Ehrman takes too many of these gospel stories at face value.

 

[maximara]

Crikey!
I thought Judas was a kind of stand-in for a faction. ie Sicarii. Iscariot/Sicarios. Generally bad guys, as far as the Gospels are concerned. He is even named after the most famous Zealot of all, Judas The Galilean.

I really think Ehrman takes too many of these gospel stories at face value.

The Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ article at rationalwiki points out the problem:

Remsburg pointed out:

"A Historical myth according to Strauss, and to some extent I follow his language, is a real event colored by the light of antiquity, which confounded the human and divine, the natural and the supernatural. The event may be but slightly colored and the narrative essentially true, or it may be distorted and numberless legends attached until but a small residuum of truth remains and the narrative is essentially false."

So even if Jesus is a historical myth (ie was a flesh and blood man) you could have the issue of the Gospel narrative being essentially false and telling you nothing about the actual Jesus other than he existed--effectively putting him on par with Robin Hood or King Arthur, who have had historical candidates suggested as much as 200 years from when their stories traditionally take place.

To make Jesus more than that a researcher has to assume some parts of the Gospels narrative is essentially true. But which parts? In answering that question all supporters of a "historical Jesus" get into the Miner problem of effectively turning Jesus into a Tabula Rasa on which they overlay their own views.

----

The Miner problem this section alludes to the 1956 article "Body Ritual among the Nacirema" by Horace Miner in American Anthropologist. On the surface the article appeared to be another 'look at this primitive culture that still believes in magic' article, so common in anthropological work of the time. In reality the piece was a sarcastic comment on how anthropologists were letting their theory drive every aspect of their research to a predestined conclusion, because the magic-using primitive culture in Miner's article was in fact the then contemporary 1950s United States!

The debate regarding evidence of Jesus has this problem on both sides of the issue. Believers in a true/historical Jesus accept any mention of Christ or Jesus as "proof" of his existence, while those who posit a legendary/mythic Jesus accept any tales remotely resembling the Christ story as "proof" there was never a flesh-and-blood man named Jesus.

---

Ehrman is trapped in the same old tar baby of previous HJ researchers: the preexisting views of what you think Jesus was colors your view to the point that is all you see. We have seen examples of how this has resulted in insane and-or ridiculous claims even in the 2nd century.

 

[Brainache]

The Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ article at rationalwiki points out the problem:

{...}
---

Ehrman is trapped in the same old tar baby of previous HJ researchers: the preexisting views of what you think Jesus was colors your view tot he point that is all you see. We have seen examples of how this has resulted in insane and-or ridiculous claims.

I have to say, that the more I read, the more plausible I'm finding the idea that "Following Jesus" could have meant: "Following the path to Salvation", rather than: "following a guy called Jesus".

The gospels contain collections of sayings from various "Righteous Teachers", but often turned around and used against the Zealous Jews. eg: In Mark we have Jesus preaching against the Jewish Purity Laws. Purity was a big deal at the time, see Josephus and the DSS. But Jesus doesn't just say: "Don't wash your hands", he justifies it by using another Mosaic Law: "Honour your Parents".

Huh?

That's right. Your Parents didn't wash their hands, so if you bother with these Purity Laws, you are dishonouring your Parents...

I would argue that, like the "pay your taxes" stuff, this is one of Paul's arguments retro-fitted to "Jesus".

Followers of "The Way" as they called themselves, were preparing for "Salvation". The words for "Salvation" and "Jesus" are nearly identical.

I've definitely moved a bit from my initial "Sheer nonsense" verdict on Jesus Myth Theories. I'm closer to "Not completely impossible" now.

 

[eight bits]

max

Supposedly Eusebius has Josephus right at his finger tips ...

Who supposes that? Do you have a source for this supposition being true?

Either way, what you would translate as "immediately" is autika.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0640:book=3:chapter=11:section=1

That word occurs another place in Eusebius, at I, 2.7 (using the word tool at Tufts):

But he, by no means neglectful of the reverence due to the Father, was appointed to teach the knowledge of the Father to them all. For instance, the Lord God, it is said, appeared as a common man to Abraham while he was sitting at the oak of Mambre. And he, immediately falling down, although he saw a man with his eyes, nevertheless worshipped him as God, and sacrificed to him as Lord, and confessed that he was not ignorant of his identity when he uttered the words, "Lord, the judge of all the earth, will you not execute righteous judgment?"

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250101.htm

That's Genesis 18. While Abraham did bow to his visitors, plural, it was in hospitality, not worship. Only as the story develops (after a prophecy about Sarah and arch comments about Sodom) does Abraham display understanding that these are unusual men. The speaking visitor does not identify himself until after what Eusebius paraphrases (now 18:25, Abraham doesn't yet address his visitor as Lord, contrary to Eusebius, but maybe in his translation that's how it is).

In any case, "immediately" corresponds with Abraham first running to greet his visitors when he saw them, and then bowing. Thus, the underlying text, which Eusebius is very imprecise with, supports no more than "promptly" to convey cause-and-effect in due succession.

The war which culminated in the siege of Jerusalem lasted for years, and hadn't yet begun when Josephus' James was killed. "Immediately" in a sense of "without any intervening events" is excluded by that consideration alone - or, if you prefer, the consideration calibrates the time scale upon which immediacy is to be interpreted as subtending years, rather than seconds.

Regardless, Josephus' imprecision about Genesis is suspicious of working from memory, rather than from a copy. That may also be a factor in his summary of Josephus. Hence, whether or not Eusebius has "Josephus right at his fingertips," as has been supposed, is worth resolving.

 

[pakeha]

...The gospels contain collections of sayings from various "Righteous Teachers", but often turned around and used against the Zealous Jews. eg: In Mark we have Jesus preaching against the Jewish Purity Laws. Purity was a big deal at the time, see Josephus and the DSS. ...

Just a thought, Brainache.
When are the DDS supposed to have been written?

And back to Ehrman!
What's he written on the DDS and their possible infuence on Christianity?

 

[maximara]

max

Who supposes that? Do you have a source for this supposition being true?

Considering Eusebius is the same guy who first references the Testimonium Flavianum we are talking about basic logic here. (See 1.11 of his Church History) Of course form what I have seen Apologists don't like logic any more then the Joker likes reality: "gets in way of the hallucinations" (like Revelation )


By the way this is the way nearly everybody translates the passage regardless of it being Sir Charles William Wilson in 1906 or a 2004 translation:

"After the martyrdom of James, and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed They all with one consent pronounced Simeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention, to be worthy of the Episcopal throne of that parish."

No matter what little word tricks you try to use you still have the issue of waiting some 8 years before replacing Josephus' James (dead in 62 CE) with Simeon, the son of Clopas in 70 CE or later. ( Eddy, Paul R. and Boyd, Gregory A. (2007) The Jesus Legend: A Case for the Historical Reliability of the Synoptic Jesus Tradition. Baker Academic, pg 189) Guess they weren't in that much a hurry to fill the Episcopal throne of that parish.

Again either we have a very wonky definition of immediately int he history of the world or we are really looking at two different James who suffered stoning that were claimed to be the one and the same.

 

[eight bits]

max

Considering Eusebius is the same guy who first references the Testimonium Flavianum we are talking about basic logic here. (See 1.11 of his Church History)

Thank you for the citation. There are quotes there from Josephus, both from the John the Baptist section and from the TF. There's nothing quoted there from the bit about James, however, and that is what we were discussing.

Speaking of simple logic, it is not unusual for a scholar to make notes from a work, verbatim or paraphrase, at some time when the work is physically available to him, and then later on, to use those notes when the work isn't available. I see no basis, then, for concluding that Eusebius is writing about Josephus' treatment of James with a copy of Josephus at hand.

Again either we have a very wonky definition of immediately ...

Or, we observe how Josephus used the same word elsewhere, or realize what is obvious anyway. However promptly the onset of a process which took years to unfold may have followed some precipitating event, the culmination of the process cannot have happened immediately after the precipitating event. Talking about basic logic, and all.

As to subsequent repetition of "immediately," later translations of classics are not independent of earlier ones, nor are they expected to be. Jesus is described as a carpenter, over and over. There is some economic logic to that; anybody who would be wise to the difference can probably manage an interlinear translation, concordance and other tools, or even just read the text as it sits. Translations are convenient for scholars, not legislative for scholarship.

we are really looking at two different James who suffered stoning that were claimed to be the one and the same.

That's the better argument against apologists. Act's James wasn't stoned (12:2).

 

[maximara]

max


Thank you for the citation. There are quotes there from Josephus, both from the John the Baptist section and from the TF. There's nothing quoted there from the bit about James, however, and that is what we were discussing.

Try Book II, Chapter 23.20: "Josephus, at least, has not hesitated to testify this in his writings, where he says, “These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.”"

Do a little more research before replying.

That's the better argument against apologists. Act's James wasn't stoned (12:2).

But is the James in Acts James the Just or is it James the son of Zebedee, James the son of Alpheus, James, the brother of Jude or some other James?

 

[eight bits]

max

Try Book II, Chapter 23.20: "Josephus, at least, has not hesitated to testify this in his writings, where he says, “These things happened to the Jews to avenge James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus, that is called the Christ. For the Jews slew him, although he was a most just man.”

Church History II 23 20 is well known to be a problem. The paraphrased matter (Eusebius isn't claiming to quote anybody verbatim) isn't from known Josephus' works. Origen is the likely source; he had written something similar in his Commentary on Matthew X 17,

...Flavius Josephus, who wrote the “Antiquities of the Jews” in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-...gen's_Commentary_on_Matthew/Book_X/Chapter_17

I also checked Eusebius' Greek. There's no indication of Eusebius having directly quoted anybody, whether Origen or Josephus.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0640:book=2:chapter=23:section=20

Do a little more research before replying.

 

[TimCallahan]

Crikey!
I thought Judas was a kind of stand-in for a faction. ie Sicarii. Iscariot/Sicarios. Generally bad guys, as far as the Gospels are concerned. He is even named after the most famous Zealot of all, Judas The Galilean.

I really think Ehrman takes too many of these gospel stories at face value.

Nobody is sure what the word / title / name "Iscariot" means. That he was one of the sicarii is one theory. Another is that Iscariot is derived from ish Karioth, Hebrew (or Aramaic?) for "man of Kerioth," referring to his hometown. Another view is that it's derived from a word for "betrayer."

ETA: The Wikipedia article on Judas has a good summary of these theories

 

[Stone]

max


Church History II 23 20 is well known to be a problem. The paraphrased matter (Eusebius isn't claiming to quote anybody verbatim) isn't from known Josephus' works. Origen is the likely source; he had written something similar in his Commentary on Matthew X 17,

...Flavius Josephus, who wrote the “Antiquities of the Jews” in twenty books, when wishing to exhibit the cause why the people suffered so great misfortunes that even the temple was razed to the ground, said, that these things happened to them in accordance with the wrath of God in consequence of the things which they had dared to do against James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ...

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-...gen's_Commentary_on_Matthew/Book_X/Chapter_17

I also checked Eusebius' Greek. There's no indication of Eusebius having directly quoted anybody, whether Origen or Josephus.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0640:book=2:chapter=23:section=20

Home run, 8bits! Bravo!

Stone

 

[TimCallahan]

This may be nothing more than a minor aside, but, having purchased Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?, I find a great difficulty looking up various subjects in it. Why? Because it lacks an index. This is also the case with Randel Helms' pithy book, Gospel Fictions. However, the Helms book was published by Prometheus Press, a rather small publishing house. In contrast, Did Jesus Exist? was published by Harper One, and imprint of Harper Collins Publishers. So, to find what Ehrman has to say on the historicity of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, one has an easier time finding a small amount of material from Ehrman's blog than finding, what one would assume to be a meatier discussion from the book. I have to say that I'm really surprised by this lack of an index in what is potentially a very important book.

 

[Brainache]

Just a thought, Brainache.
When are the DDS supposed to have been written?

And back to Ehrman!
What's he written on the DDS and their possible infuence on Christianity?

From around 40 BCE to 120 CE.

Yes, back to Ehrman. I think my Paul as Herodian stuff will have to go in a new thread.

I don't think he has written anything about the DSS.

Nobody is sure what the word / title / name "Iscariot" means. That he was one of the sicarii is one theory. Another is that Iscariot is derived from ish Karioth, Hebrew (or Aramaic?) for "man of Kerioth," referring to his hometown. Another view is that it's derived from a word for "betrayer."

ETA: The Wikipedia article on Judas has a good summary of these theories

Thanks.

Happy Birthday!

 

[pakeha]

From around 40 BCE to 120 CE.

Yes, back to Ehrman. I think my Paul as Herodian stuff will have to go in a new thread.

I don't think he has written anything about the DSS.

Where did you get the 40 BCE to 120 CE dating, Brainache?
The sources I've consulted gave a very different account.
The most amazing source I found was this one
http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/learn-about-the-scrolls/historical-timeline

I'm surprised Ehrman hasn't written about the DDS, though his principal subject is biblical analysis, IIRC.

TimCallahan, right up there with paywalls on my list are books without indices.
Even LOTR has one, after all.

ETA
Ehrman has this to say about the DDS
http://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls/

 

[TimCallahan]

In spite of Ehrman's book lacking an index, I did finally find his argument that the betrayal of Jesus by Judas was historical. It's close to the end of the book, pp. 328 - 330. Ehrman theorizes that what Judas betrayed to the authorities was that Jesus was calling himself king of the Jews, God's anointed, the Messiah or Christ. Ehrman says that Jesus didn't state this publicly, so it was a secret among the Twelve that Judas betrayed to the authorities.

What Jesus did say about himself, according to the gospels, was that he called himself the "Son of man" and the "Son of God." Somehow, calling oneself the son of God seems to me tantamount to claiming to be the Christ and as such the King of the Jews. In Mark, the earliest of the gospels, we have this exchange between Jesus and the high priest (Mk. 14:61b, 62):

Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, "I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

Here, it would seem that the "Son of the Blessed," i.e. the "Son of God," is equated with being the Christ. Thus, it seems to me that Ehrman is splitting hairs to make calling himself the Christ / Messiah / King of the Jews as being a different claim from that of being the Son of God. After all, the Messiah (Gr. Christos) was supposed to be God's anointed, which means a king. So, claiming to be the Son of God was the same as claiming to be the Christ, which is the same as being the king of the Jews.

Of course, if one takes the gospel accounts to any degree seriously, Jesus has indeed made a very public claim to being king on Palm Sunday, when he enters Jerusalem in a way that fulfills a messianic prophecy in Zechariah and is hailed by multitudes crying "Hosannah!" This means "Save us," and, by extension, "Free us." Of course, this episode is most likely fiction. However, if we take this as fiction, how can we then turn around and say that the gospels are authoritative if they say that Jesus never openly claimed to be the king of the Jews?

Ehrman also says that Jesus, once arrested couldn't deny the charge. Why? A denial would be a renunciation of such a claim. If it's just Judas accusing him and only Jesus is arrested, Jesus' word should carry well against that of Judas. That brings up another problem I have with this whole scenario. According to Josephus, when the Romans attacked Theudas, they killed or captured most of his followers. Yet, we are supposed to believe that only Jesus is taken, leaving Peter and the others free. Yet, they would have been Jesus' co-conspirators.

 

[pgwenthold]

Shoot, Peter even attacked a guy, cutting off his ear. Still, he is allowed to wander the streets?

 

[catsmate]

This may be nothing more than a minor aside, but, having purchased Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?, I find a great difficulty looking up various subjects in it. Why? Because it lacks an index. This is also the case with Randel Helms' pithy book, Gospel Fictions. However, the Helms book was published by Prometheus Press, a rather small publishing house. In contrast, Did Jesus Exist? was published by Harper One, and imprint of Harper Collins Publishers. So, to find what Ehrman has to say on the historicity of the betrayal of Jesus by Judas Iscariot, one has an easier time finding a small amount of material from Ehrman's blog than finding, what one would assume to be a meatier discussion from the book. I have to say that I'm really surprised by this lack of an index in what is potentially a very important book.

You should have gone with the ebook.

 

[pakeha]

...Ehrman theorizes that what Judas betrayed to the authorities was that Jesus was calling himself king of the Jews, God's anointed, the Messiah or Christ. Ehrman says that Jesus didn't state this publicly, so it was a secret among the Twelve that Judas betrayed to the authorities.
... In Mark, the earliest of the gospels, we have this exchange between Jesus and the high priest (Mk. 14:61b, 62):

Again the high priest asked him, "Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed? And Jesus said, "I am; and you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

Here, it would seem that the "Son of the Blessed," i.e. the "Son of God," is equated with being the Christ. Thus, it seems to me that Ehrman is splitting hairs to make calling himself the Christ / Messiah / King of the Jews as being a different claim from that of being the Son of God. After all, the Messiah (Gr. Christos) was supposed to be God's anointed, which means a king. So, claiming to be the Son of God was the same as claiming to be the Christ, which is the same as being the king of the Jews.

Of course, if one takes the gospel accounts to any degree seriously, Jesus has indeed made a very public claim to being king on Palm Sunday, when he enters Jerusalem in a way that fulfills a messianic prophecy in Zechariah and is hailed by multitudes crying "Hosannah!" This means "Save us," and, by extension, "Free us." Of course, this episode is most likely fiction. However, if we take this as fiction, how can we then turn around and say that the gospels are authoritative if they say that Jesus never openly claimed to be the king of the Jews?

Ehrman also says that Jesus, once arrested couldn't deny the charge. Why? A denial would be a renunciation of such a claim. If it's just Judas accusing him and only Jesus is arrested, Jesus' word should carry well against that of Judas. That brings up another problem I have with this whole scenario. According to Josephus, when the Romans attacked Theudas, they killed or captured most of his followers. Yet, we are supposed to believe that only Jesus is taken, leaving Peter and the others free. Yet, they would have been Jesus' co-conspirators.

I'm confused.
Judas betrayed Jesus for claiming to be a Messiah, the same charge Theudas and others faced, and that until the betrayal, Jesus' claim was a secret amongst the twelve disciples.

Yet only Jesus is arrested, not his co-conspirators?
I haven't quite understood how this betrayal can be considered historical.

 

[TimCallahan]

I'm confused.
Judas betrayed Jesus for claiming to be a Messiah, the same charge Theudas and others faced, and that until the betrayal, Jesus' claim was a secret amongst the twelve disciples.

Yet only Jesus is arrested, not his co-conspirators?
I haven't quite understood how this betrayal can be considered historical.

I suspect Ehrman would consider the whole betrayal by a kiss, etc. fictional. He seems to think that Judas betrayed Jesus' secret claim to the high priest. I imagine he would assume that at least some of Jesus' followers would have been arrested as well. Of course, I'm guessing here. However, one thing remains unexplained: How did his sect survive after his death, while the followers of Theudas and others did not?

Here's a possible scenario: Jesus came to Jerusalem with the deluded belief that he was the Son of God and the Son of man character from the Book of Daniel. I suspect that he set himself up to be put to death in the belief that God would raise him from the dead, i.e. he had complicity in his own arrest. If he actually created a disruption in the temple, overturning the tables of the money-changers, I suspect the temple guards would have arrested him on the spot: no need for a betrayal, no need for any of his followers to be taken. If this hypothetical scenario is true, he would have claimed then and there to be the Christ, the king of the Jews. The priests would have happily handed him over to the Romans for a swift sentence and an excruciating death.

That might have been an end to everything, leaving nothing behind but yet another (minor) faction of Jews. Then Paul had a conversion experience while persecuting them and created his own Christ Jesus out of his hallucination. The new belief system was wildly syncretistic and had no barriers to membership, as did the mystery religions. Hence, it rapidly out-populated them.

 

[pakeha]

You're positing Jesus as a deluded nutter?
Why not?
I daresay it's as good an explanation as any and, coupled with Paul's vision and literary talent, explains a great deal.