Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

Paul's letter to the Galatians paints a picture of division and discord in the early Christian religion, which has the ring of truth, particularly when compared to the Book of Acts, in which these conflicts were whitewashed..

Nobody doubts that Christians existed in the 1st century. But the fact that they may have had various disagreements amongst themselves is hardly any sort of evidence that Jesus was real.

I don't see anything that sounds false in Paul's letters. Of course, this says little about the actual historicity of Jesus. Of course, the gospel writers, beginning with Mark, writing either in CE 70 or some time later, had no reputable knowledge of Jesus..

Well it's false when Paul tells us that 500 people at once had seen Jesus risen from the dead.

Paul does not need to be deliberately lying about anything. But it's surely obvious that he believed all sorts of things (religious things) that were untrue.

But whether or not Paul held false beliefs about God and Jesus, is not really the point here. The point is that there is nothing in any of his letters that is actually evidence of Jesus existing.

As to the historicity of Jesus, that he might have been a messianic pretender summarily put to death by the Romans, seems reasonable enough to me. Yet, should it turn out that he was entirely invented, it wouldn't exactly rock my world.

But if you think Jesus was more likely than not (I think you said that before?), then is that a conclusion that you have arrived at on the basis of some actual evidence of his existence? Or is that more like a gut feeling that Christians (eg pre-Paul) could not, or would not, have simply believed preachers of a mythical religious story?

 

[IanS]

Was there a very early group whose leader was named Jesus that is the Jesus in the accounts which we received?
No idea; I don't think we can actually validate that claim.
We can only take it on faith …..
….

When there is reliable evidence that events are actually true, then I don’t think real historians and archaeologists find it impossible to “validate” what actually happened in ancient history (depending what you mean by “validate“. If you mean 100% certainty, then that doesn’t even happen in maths!).

However in the case of Jesus, despite 2000 years of the church, theologians and bible scholars telling us that there is so much evidence that it’s absolutely “certain” that Jesus existed, in fact it appears that what they are calling “certain evidence” of Jesus, is actually nothing more than evidence of what people believed about a figure that none of them had ever met, and who they constantly described in terms of miracles and the supernatural.

If that complete lack of any evidence means that the whole thing just boils down to a matter of us having “faith” in 2000 year old religious claims, then that is obviously very far short of what’s required for a figure who is the basis of modern day Christianity as a movement which directly or indirectly affects the daily lives of almost everyone on the planet.

 

[TimCallahan]

It's not in the thread; it was s comparison of two contentious topics of history.
The diffusionist theory is a proposition regarding human migration in ancient times.

Can you give me a link on this? I know that when it comes to, for example, mythic themes, there are certainly some that demonstrate diffusion. The flood stories of Greece and Israel were likely based on the Akkadian story of Atrahasis. On the other hand there are striking mythic parallels across the world that cold not be the result of diffusion. For example, the Algonquin speaking Montagnais Indians of Quebec (montagnais is a French word meaning "mountaineer") have a story of death coming into the world that is strikingly like the Greek myth of Pandora.

I'm not sure how any of this relates to the historicity of Jesus.

 

[TimCallahan]

Nobody doubts that Christians existed in the 1st century. But the fact that they may have had various disagreements amongst themselves is hardly any sort of evidence that Jesus was real.

The disagreements between Gnostics and those who came to be orthodox Christians (i.e. the sect that won and therefore wrote the history) would fit this view. The disagreements we find in Galatians, which were smoothed over in Acts, had to do with whether or not new converts to Christian belief had to first become Jews - i.e. become circumcised if male, observe the dietary laws, etc. - or if they did not, meaning in the latter view that the Christians would become a separate religion, not just another Jewish sect.

Well it's false when Paul tells us that 500 people at once had seen Jesus risen from the dead.

I probably should have qualified what I said. Let me do it now. I think Paul was being truthful regarding non-supernatural matters.

As to the 500+ brethren who supposedly saw the risen Christ at one time, there's evidence in the passage of later intrusive material being introduced. Here's the passage as we now have it (1 Cor. 4 - 8):

And that he [Jesus] was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures: And that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are alive today, though some have fallen asleep. After that, he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, he appeared to me as to one untimely born.

Notice that the passage shows a widening circle of appearances up to a point, then sticks the appearance to James toward the end. It's reasonable that Paul would be at the end, since the passage an the material immediately following it is self deprecating. In Galatians it's apparent that James, not Peter, is in charge, which would hardly be the case if he was so far down in the order, and if Jesus first appeared to Peter. I suspect that sticking james at the end was done by a later editor to discredit him, while putting Cephas (Peter) in his place. After all, Cephas was one of the 12. I also suspect this editor threw in the 500+ brethren. Here is how I think (and this is only my speculation) the passage originally read:

And that he [Jesus] was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the scriptures: And that he appeared to James, then to the twelve. After that, he appeared to all the apostles. Last of all, he appeared to me as to one untimely born.

The fact that none of the gospel writers - who would reasonably have some knowledge of Paul and who were writing decades after he had written - mention the 500+ brethren means either they never heard of this, because the 500+ weren't in the original letter, or that the story might have been floating around, but wasn't considered reputable. It would be too stunning an evidence of the resurrection to leave out.

Paul does not need to be deliberately lying about anything. But it's surely obvious that he believed all sorts of things (religious things) that were untrue.

Agreed.

But whether or not Paul held false beliefs about God and Jesus, is not really the point here. The point is that there is nothing in any of his letters that is actually evidence of Jesus existing.

Again, agreed. As I've said, even accepting Jesus as historical, Paul dispenses with any real Jesus in favor of the Christ Jesus of the hallucinatory revelation of his conversion experience.

But if you think Jesus was more likely than not (I think you said that before?), then is that a conclusion that you have arrived at on the basis of some actual evidence of his existence? Or is that more like a gut feeling that Christians (eg pre-Paul) could not, or would not, have simply believed preachers of a mythical religious story?

The other dying and rising man-gods (such as Osiris and Dionysus) are usually killed by dismemberment, while Jesus is put to death by a known method of execution practiced in the area and possibly used by the Romans. For example, Josephus says that Alexander Jannaeus had about 800 Pharisees crucified. If the early Christians invented the story of the crucifixion,they evidently wanted to place Jesus in a historical setting. So, yes, they could have invented this. However, historicity it didn't seem all that important to other religions at that time.

 

[JaysonR]

Can you give me a link on this? I know that when it comes to, for example, mythic themes, there are certainly some that demonstrate diffusion. The flood stories of Greece and Israel were likely based on the Akkadian story of Atrahasis. On the other hand there are striking mythic parallels across the world that cold not be the result of diffusion. For example, the Algonquin speaking Montagnais Indians of Quebec (montagnais is a French word meaning "mountaineer") have a story of death coming into the world that is strikingly like the Greek myth of Pandora.

I'm not sure how any of this relates to the historicity of Jesus.

It doesn't relate to Jesus.
The only comparison between the two is that they are two things which are contentious in history: did X happen?

When the comment was made that it makes little difference whether Jesus did or did not exist, I was taking the moment to point out that not only is this true unto an individual level (to me, or to you, etc...), but it is true within the historical society itself.

If Jesus wasn't real as a person, museums, dating catalogs, dig sites, artifacts, etc... don't have to be completely revamped and re-cataloged.

However, by comparison, the diffusionist theory, if proven right, would require a massive revamp of the entire historical timeline.

The diffusionist theory is decently summarized on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-cultural_diffusion

 

[JaysonR]

When there is reliable evidence that events are actually true, then I don’t think real historians and archaeologists find it impossible to “validate” what actually happened in ancient history (depending what you mean by “validate“. If you mean 100% certainty, then that doesn’t even happen in maths!).

However in the case of Jesus, despite 2000 years of the church, theologians and bible scholars telling us that there is so much evidence that it’s absolutely “certain” that Jesus existed, in fact it appears that what they are calling “certain evidence” of Jesus, is actually nothing more than evidence of what people believed about a figure that none of them had ever met, and who they constantly described in terms of miracles and the supernatural.

If that complete lack of any evidence means that the whole thing just boils down to a matter of us having “faith” in 2000 year old religious claims, then that is obviously very far short of what’s required for a figure who is the basis of modern day Christianity as a movement which directly or indirectly affects the daily lives of almost everyone on the planet.

I personally don't care, so works for me.

I'm more interested in the cultural movements than any one given individual within it.
What Jesus represents to me is cultural movements over a period of time.

Whether he existed or not is about equal with whether or not "Ebionites" were "Ebionites" or something else; whether early "Gnostics" were "Gnostic"; whether the Gospel According to the Hebrews was the Hebrew Gospel, or any other such semantic issues.

Yes, to me; Jesus' existence is an issue of semantics and nothing more.

I know it means something to believers, but it means nothing to me.

 

[IanS]

I personally don't care, so works for me.

I'm more interested in the cultural movements than any one given individual within it.
What Jesus represents to me is cultural movements over a period of time.

Whether he existed or not is about equal with whether or not "Ebionites" were "Ebionites" or something else; whether early "Gnostics" were "Gnostic"; whether the Gospel According to the Hebrews was the Hebrew Gospel, or any other such semantic issues.

Yes, to me; Jesus' existence is an issue of semantics and nothing more.

I know it means something to believers, but it means nothing to me.

His existence or otherwise is however (presumably) fundamental to modern day Christianity. And that is an organisation of huge influence and importance worldwide. If Jesus were only a fictional figure, then what would be left as the valid basis of Christianity?

The influence of worldwide religion extends into all sorts of political decisions concerning education, taxation, employment laws, public holidays, equal rights/discrimination issues, medical and scientific research, almost every aspect of government you can think of, even inc. military action. Those issues ultimately affect the lives of everyone on the planet.

Or perhaps you think we don't need to care about what the Christian church does and what individual Christians do in the name of their religious beliefs? They are not dangerous? Not capable of ever posing the sort of dangers we see from radical Islam or other religious sects around the world?

 

[JaysonR]

No, that's all fine.
I don't care because there's already enough of that; there isn't as much in regards to people learning the cultures through history, and what that means to the larger human narrative; especially in this region.

 

[Brainache]

I think that if somehow someone ever proves that the earliest references to "Jesus" are actually references to the concept of "Salvation" and not a man named Jesus, or whatever the current Jesus Myth "Theory" is, it won't make much of a difference.

Theologians will just say something like: "We always thought the Gospels were allegorical, this just takes it one step further. Nothing to worry about. Carry on, business as usual. It's all about the Message, not the Messenger. Praise Jesus!"

{head explodes}

 

[IanS]

I think that if somehow someone ever proves that the earliest references to "Jesus" are actually references to the concept of "Salvation" and not a man named Jesus, or whatever the current Jesus Myth "Theory" is, it won't make much of a difference.

Theologians will just say something like: "We always thought the Gospels were allegorical, this just takes it one step further. Nothing to worry about. Carry on, business as usual. It's all about the Message, not the Messenger. Praise Jesus!"

{head explodes}

Yes that's certainly a common response, and I agree that even if we ever got to a stage where most Christians had to accept that Jesus was probably only a mythical figure, in the short term that still may not appear to be very damaging to Christian numbers.

However in the longer term I don't see how it could be anything but extremely damaging to the credibility of Christian belief. Even the most deluded theists could not continue indefinitely proclaiming adherence to a faith which they themselves came to accept as fictional.

No, that's all fine.
I don't care because there's already enough of that; there isn't as much in regards to people learning the cultures through history, and what that means to the larger human narrative; especially in this region.

Enough of what? You mean there is already enough effective opposition to keep Christianity out of influencing political decision making in the USA for example? You think we already have enough control that the church has no real voice or any real influence in government and law making etc?

Even in the UK, which is nowhere near as actively Christian as the US, the church has very considerable direct influence on UK government policy in numerous areas (eg those areas I listed above).

I think the world would be a safer, fairer, and better educated place without that sort of continual religious intervention in all manner of world affairs.

 

[Brainache]

Yes that's certainly a common response, and I agree that even if we ever got to a stage where most Christians had to accept that Jesus was probably only a mythical figure, in the short term that still may not appear to be very damaging to Christian numbers.

However in the longer term I don't see how it could be anything but extremely damaging to the credibility of Christian belief. Even the most deluded theists could not continue indefinitely proclaiming adherence to a faith which they themselves came to accept as fictional.

Not fictional, allegorical. God just chose to reveal Himself in that way through Paul so His message could reach a wider audience... or something. He was never going to get too many Gentiles to listen if they had to hack bits off their willies. No bacon is bad enough, but a man has limits.

Enough of what? You mean there is already enough effective opposition to keep Christianity out of influencing political decision making in the USA for example? You think we already have enough control that the church has no real voice or any real influence in government and law making etc?

Even in the UK, which is nowhere near as actively Christian as the US, the church has very considerable direct influence on UK government policy in numerous areas (eg those areas I listed above).

I think the world would be a safer, fairer, and better educated place without that sort of continual religious intervention in all manner of world affairs.

I agree that these are laudable goals. I'm sure there are many people working in different ways towards these ends. How is equating Jesus with John Frum and Sherlock Holmes working out for you?

 

[JaysonR]

Enough of what? You mean there is already enough effective opposition to keep Christianity out of influencing political decision making in the USA for example? You think we already have enough control that the church has no real voice or any real influence in government and law making etc?

Even in the UK, which is nowhere near as actively Christian as the US, the church has very considerable direct influence on UK government policy in numerous areas (eg those areas I listed above).

I think the world would be a safer, fairer, and better educated place without that sort of continual religious intervention in all manner of world affairs.

There are enough folks coneying all there is to convey on the matter.
My interests are otherwise; a more neglected issue of what the cultural philosophies were and how their culture thought, in consideration of the evolution of human conception toward ontology.

We recognize many other cultures' philosophies, yet here, a great neglect occurs due to being completely drowned and suffocated by either derivative and deluted theological lust or anti-religious belittlement in social contest of the current theological decendants.

 

[IanS]

Not fictional, allegorical. God just chose to reveal Himself in that way through Paul so His message could reach a wider audience... or something. He was never going to get too many Gentiles to listen if they had to hack bits off their willies. No bacon is bad enough, but a man has limits.

"Not fictional"? We are specifically talking about what would happen to organised Christianity if Jesus was indeed fictional.

To repeat - if we ever got to a stage where even the Christians Church had to admit that Jesus was probably only ever a fictional character (ie that he did not really exist), then in the longer term I expect that would inevitably lead to dwindling numbers of people proclaiming belief in Christianity.

At present a far greater problem is Islamic belief, of course. But that appears to be partly due to Islamic views still not having adapted to a 20th/21st century world in the way that most of Christianity has. Though perhaps in Islam there also more fundamental reasons why belief in the Koran is inherently more dangerous in a 21st century world than Christianity ever was in past centuries.

But I think there are very obvious similarities between the religious beliefs of Christianity and the almost identical religious beliefs of Islam. And if the Christian belief in Jesus turns out to be little more than ancient ignorant religious superstition, then hopefully to some extent that should also raise questions over the historicity of Mohamed, and the existence of God himself (eg, Jesus is widely regarded as an incarnation of God, for example ... an incarnation who in this scenario we are proposing as quite possibly no more than mythical/fictional).

I agree that these are laudable goals. I'm sure there are many people working in different ways towards these ends. How is equating Jesus with John Frum and Sherlock Holmes working out for you?

I think I must be one of the few people in these threads who has never mentioned (not even in response) any comparison with John Frum or Sherlock Holmes.

I don’t think we need any of those comparisons to discover that the evidence for Jesus is not only very weak indeed, but a complete contrast to the picture still painted by a Christian church and others who continue to claim that the evidence is overwhelming (bit of a credibility gap there). In fact it seems the actual evidence points quite clearly to the fact that the biblical stories of Jesus (inc. Paul’s beliefs) were taken from what had been written centuries before in the ancient Jewish OT.

None of this will erase the dangers of literalist religious belief overnight. But I think it would be a serious blow to all religious beliefs if a figure like Jesus could be shown as most probably fictional. And I think that would be a good thing for the world if it reduces support for organised religions such as Christianity and Islam.

 

[Brainache]

Well OK IanS.

Problem is, the people who are causing most of the trouble also believe in a literal Genesis, 6 day Creation, Noah's Ark, Tower Of Babel and all that. Modern Geology and Biology hasn't changed their minds, it seems to have spawned more extreme fundamentalists, if anything.

Some people who are already losing their religion might use it as an excuse, but I don't think it will affect Fundies. Some nerdy Academic in a bow-tie talking about "Yeshua" and "Yesha" isn't going to bother Ken Ham.

 

[IanS]

Well OK IanS.

Problem is, the people who are causing most of the trouble also believe in a literal Genesis, 6 day Creation, Noah's Ark, Tower Of Babel and all that. Modern Geology and Biology hasn't changed their minds, it seems to have spawned more extreme fundamentalists, if anything.

Some people who are already losing their religion might use it as an excuse, but I don't think it will affect Fundies. Some nerdy Academic in a bow-tie talking about "Yeshua" and "Yesha" isn't going to bother Ken Ham.

In the short term I agree - though over the past century or so, quite a few theists, &/or potential theists, must surely have been persuaded away from organised religion by scientific discoveries such as human evolution. But I agree that many theists not only continue to believe evolution must be untrue, but some have also become more outspoken about it and some have become very militant and aggressive in rejecting not only evolution but all sorts of other scientific discoveries which might appear to cast doubt on the existence of God.

On the other hand, in the UK for example (and afaik in many other parts of Europe), and apparently in the USA too, there has been a steady decline in Christian religious belief from decade to decade. I think that must be mainly due to increased education, with each new generation realising more clearly that the science is correct (and that miracle beliefs are incorrect).

Islam seems a harder nut to crack, especially within largely Islamic nations such as Pakistan and many parts of the middle east. But again, that seems largely due to less widespread scientific education in those nations (eg the lack of modern education in smaller towns and villages).

The existence or otherwise of Jesus is of course not likely to be scientifically "proved" in the way that evolution has been. But still, if it turns out that evidence becomes much stronger for the case against a historical Jesus, or even if more Christians were aware of how weak the evidence actually is and how badly it’s been misrepresented to them by the church and by bible scholars, then over the longer term (say 50 to 100 years) I can see a situation where Christian numbers will decline further in the US and in Europe, and where there is a "knock on" effect even in the Islamic world (especially if the existence of Mohamed and God are likewise called into serious question).

As I say, I don’t expect things to change over night. Especially not after 2000 years of the church insisting that everyone must believe their faith, or else face some appalling penalty. But if the evidence for Jesus is a weak as it appears to be, then I think it’s important that Christians are made fully aware of that (i.e. if we care about dangerous behaviour and anti-educational anti-scientific beliefs pursued in the name of religious faith).


At any rate - those are the sort of reasons why I am interested in the fact that the evidence of Jesus appears to have been vastly overstated not only by the church, but also by academics calling themselves “bible historians”. That is - I’m interested to know that in fact it appears that Jesus, as the basis of Christianity, seems quite possibly to have been only a fictitious character and not a real person at all, and certainly not anyone bearing any resemblance to the descriptions in the bible or the person who all devoted Christians believe in. And as I say, the reason I am interested in that seemingly weak position for the basis of Christian faith, is because I think organised religions such as Christianity are both highly dangerous and also a block to scientific education, not to mention a whole raft of other problems such as discrimination against women and gay people etc.

 

[Brainache]

I agree.

But just as a demonstration of what Historians are up against when dealing with Apologists, I give you this documentary: "The Wife of God"



Notice how the Jewish Academic twists the words of his own Holy Text to avoid concluding that the Ancient Israelites were polytheistic. He won't accept evidence from his own Bible. Richard Carrier doesn't have a hope against people like that.


Also, I think I'm in love with that Greek Bible Scholar. She has the voice of an angel, the face of a goddess, the brain of a genius and a surname like a rare skin disease... She's got it all.

 

[IanS]

I agree.

But just as a demonstration of what Historians are up against when dealing with Apologists, I give you this documentary: "The Wife of God"



Notice how the Jewish Academic twists the words of his own Holy Text to avoid concluding that the Ancient Israelites were polytheistic. He won't accept evidence from his own Bible. Richard Carrier doesn't have a hope against people like that.


Also, I think I'm in love with that Greek Bible Scholar. She has the voice of an angel, the face of a goddess, the brain of a genius and a surname like a rare skin disease... She's got it all.

That film reminds me of the much shorter YouTube clip that I linked before in the earlier HJ threads, where Richard Dawkins interviews the US bible historian John Huddleston.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NoQuKTB8Q

I that film Huddleston also says that the monotheistic belief in Yahweh came relatively late in Jewish OT history. Before that people of that region had believed in several different gods and goddesses.

But Huddleston adds that in fact there is actually no evidence that people such as Abraham, Isaac, King David or any of those central characters from the early Jewish OT even existed. And similarly he says that many of the central events such as exiles of people into various lands etc. are also not supported by any evidence.

It seems to me pretty clear that the OT origins of all these ancient Jewish, Israelite, Canaanite religious beliefs (and similar beliefs from the Greeks and Persians etc.) are quite obviously nothing more than fictional superstition stories invented to support a theology of the time. So I’m at a loss as to why anyone should still continue to believe such childish nonsense today.

 

[JaysonR]

Yes; there's a pile of history that is needing to be dug through and put back where it belongs, which mostly has been grossly overlooked and neglected due to theological holdings.

The early Hebrew peoples (who were Canaan highlanders) were absolutely a mix of smaller family religions (like we see in every culture's [developing from tribal to governed] beginnings for theologies).

Here's a pretty good book on these beliefs:
Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) - K. van der Toorn

(I don't favor the author's use of "Israelite" over "Hebrew Peoples", but rather easily, the book still contains plenty of useful references and summaries.)

 

[pakeha]

...Here's a pretty good book on these beliefs:
Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) - K. van der Toorn...

Yours for just 218 USD, used, from Amazon.

 

[JaysonR]

Yes, unfortunately.
It was even higher than that originally.

I still haven't the whole book, but one day I hope to 'find' the entire copy (or afford the academic price).
That said, even the preview sections from Google Books are worth the read.