Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Brainache]

I'm going to have to declare victory if you don't start debunking me soon dejudge. You wouldn't want that.

I can claim victory because I provided sources and you didn't, so I win.

You have 24 hours from now to start debunking me. If you don't, I will know you have conceded defeat and that you will no longer be spewing your "It's all forged" nonsense here.

OK?

The clock is ticking dejudge. Google is your friend...

There are only nine and a half hours left before your ultimate defeat dejudge.

I hope you've got your fake second century bags packed...

 

[dejudge]

Which is a far cry from suggesting that Jesus' existence as a run-of-the-mill human is plausible based on the only evidence available to us.

No, No, No!!! You are suggesting Jesus existence is plausible by rejecting the evidence that he was a figure of Mythology.

Do you not reject Matthew 1 where it is stated that Jesus was born of a Ghost and a Virgin?

Do you not reject Mark 6 where it is stated the Jesus walked on the sea?

Do you not reject Mark 9 where it is stated that Jesus transfigured?

Do you not reject Mark 16 where it is stated Jesus was raised from the dead?

Do you not reject Luke 24 where it is stated that Jesus ascended in a cloud?

Do you not reject John 1 where it is stated that Jesus was the Logos and God Creator?


Why do you accept the Pauline claims in the Bible when you don't even know when they were composed, who really wrote them and have admitted that they may be delusions or lies?

Why do you believe the Bible is an historical source for your Jesus without corroboration from non-apologetic sources?

There may have been at least 7 different Pauline authors at different times who all had delusions or were lying.

The NT cannot be accepted as an historical source without external corroboration.

Christians and HJers typically accept the Bible as an historical source without external corroboration when they argue for their HJ of Nazareth.


1. Jesus of the Bible is a Myth without history.

2. It is known that HJ is without history.

In effect, there is only ONE Jesus--Myth Jesus.

HJ without history--the perfect criteria for mythology.

Who said anything about believing Paul's delusions or lies? You would make a terrible police detective. If you caught one witness in a lie, you would immediately leap to the conclusion that everything that person had said about anything was completely false.

Are you not arguing that Pauline writigs are authentic and that he either had delusions or was lying?

You must believe the Pauline writings are a source of history when you suggested Paul had delusion or was lying.

My position is that Paul is an invented 1st century character so he neither had delusions or was lying--the story was made up no earlier than c 180 CE.

 

[dejudge]

I've refuted you point by point regarding the Gospel of Mark. You have ignored everything I've said. I've also pointed out to you that any HJ I would see as existing is quite minimal. We really don't have that great a quarrel. However, it seems important to you to be one-up on everyone else. That's what this quarrel is really all about. I realized late last night that I had wasted an extensive portion of the day arguing with you. I will not waste any further time with you.

As a way of avoiding the trap of being sucked into endless, pointless arguments with you, I am now putting you on "ignore."

I think you have trapped yourself. Every time I answer your same questions over and over you claim I never did.

You have utterly failed to show a single Hellenized Jew outside the Bible who was actually a part of a cult who worshiped a messianic pretender as a God since the time of Pilate.

 

[Craig B]

No <snip things that have been stated and restated endlessly already> My position is that Paul is an invented 1st century character so he neither had delusions or was lying--the story was made up no earlier than c 180 CE.

That is utterly ludicrous. By whom was it made up? Show me the documents that prove it was made up post 180 AD. Show me the evidence! I need sources, sources, sources!!! The days when people could say things without evidence are passed! The absence of pre-180 manuscripts is not evidence!!! As noted, we only have medieval manuscripts of Tacitus! Our earliest manuscript of Lucretius is from c 825!! The earliest extant manuscripts of Julius Caesar's works also date to the ninth century!!! We need sources and more sources from you!!! Now! And per wiki

As is common with ancient texts, however, there are no surviving extant manuscripts of Josephus' works that can be dated before the 11th century

So all so-called ancient texts were forged in the Middle Ages, exactly as proposed by Jean Hardouin?!?! Why are you promoting known forgeries?!?!?!

 

[dejudge]

... My position is that Paul is an invented 1st century character so he neither had delusions or was lying--the story was made up no earlier than c 180 CE.

That is utterly ludicrous. By whom was it made up? Show me the documents that prove it was made up post 180 AD. Show me the evidence! I need sources, sources, sources!!! The days when people could say things without evidence are passed! The absence of pre-180 manuscripts is not evidence!!! As noted, we only have medieval manuscripts of Tacitus! Our earliest manuscript of Lucretius is from c 825!! The earliest extant manuscripts of Julius Caesar's works also date to the ninth century!!! We need sources and more sources from you!!! Now! And per wiki So all so-called ancient texts were forged in the Middle Ages, exactly as proposed by Jean Hardouin?!?! Why are you promoting known forgeries?!?!?!

What a laugh!! It is your position that is ludricous. You cannot present any Pauline manuscripts dated to c 37-62 CE.

You have exposed that you are not aware of the evidence from antiquity.

The earliest Pauline manuscripts [P 46] are dated around the start of the 3rd century.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

 

[Foster Zygote]

No, No, No!!! You are suggesting Jesus existence is plausible by rejecting the evidence that he was a figure of Mythology.

Your evidence that Jesus was a mythological character is little different from the evidence that Kim Jong-il was a mythical character. All you do is list a bunch of supernatural stuff that religious people believed about him as though that proves that he could never have existed as a non-supernatural religious figure. Even today, in industrialized nations in the age of science, look how many people believe that people like Peter Popoff, W. V. Grant, Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson etc. etc. etc., have the power to heal people of sickness and injury with the magical power of God. If people can believe in the magical powers of such modern day charlatans whom we know to be real people, why does that fact that some people believed that Jesus was born of a virgin, walked on water and raised the dead mean that Jesus couldn't have been a real person to whom these abilities were wrongly attributed? It's like you can't comprehend something as simple as the difference between what someone really is, and what he and/or others think he is.

I can believe in the existence of Benny Hinn without believing what others believe about him. Can you grasp that simple concept and apply it to an historical Jesus?

Why do you accept the Pauline claims in the Bible when you don't even know when they were composed, who really wrote them and have admitted that they may be delusions or lies?

I don't accept them. You're still stuck in your inability to grasp that something can contain both elements of truth and falsehood. I look at those writings and wonder what clues to the origins of Christianity might be gleaned from them. Even the pseudepigraphic texts attributed to Paul can tell us what was going on within various sects of Christianity generations after Paul died, particularly related to the problem that Jesus' imminent return was taking a lot longer than was expected.

Why do you believe the Bible is an historical source for your Jesus without corroboration from non-apologetic sources?

I think it contains clues to the existence of a preacher who got the ball rolling. Although it's likely that there were other figures who influenced him, such as John the Baptist. So even Christianity can't really be said to ultimately derive from Jesus any more than Islam can be said to ultimately derive from Mohammed.

There may have been at least 7 different Pauline authors at different times who all had delusions or were lying.

The ones who claimed to be Paul were definitely lying. The interesting question is: Why were they lying? What developments in Christianity were they attempting to address or manipulate?

The NT cannot be accepted as an historical source without external corroboration.

Christians and HJers typically accept the Bible as an historical source without external corroboration when they argue for their HJ of Nazareth.

Who's accepting it as an historical source? It's being examined forensically to determine what it might tell us about the people who wrote those stories and why they wrote them. You're so stuck on denigrating the Bible that you can't even approach it from that perspective.

Are you not arguing that Pauline writigs are authentic and that he either had delusions or was lying?

Is it too complicated for you to understand that people can say false things about someone who may have really existed, or that they can be deluded about that person?

You must believe the Pauline writings are a source of history when you suggested Paul had delusion or was lying.

That doesn't make the least bit of sense.

My position is that Paul is an invented 1st century character so he neither had delusions or was lying--the story was made up no earlier than c 180 CE.

Could you briefly explicate that scenario for us, in your own words?

 

[Foster Zygote]

What a laugh!! It is your position that is ludricous. You cannot present any Pauline manuscripts dated to c 37-62 CE.

You have exposed that you are not aware of the evidence from antiquity.

The earliest Pauline manuscripts [P 46] are dated around the start of the 3rd century.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

How old is the earliest available copy of Josephus' writings?

Hint: It ain't from the 1st Century.

 

[Belz...]

You are not familiar with the current view of Richard Carrier and not familiar with the abundance of evidence for myth Jesus born of a Ghost and God Creator.

You are not familiar with the views of all historians on the existence and non-existence of Jesus.

I am not talking about Carrier but about you. For all your pomp, you have failed to show that your MJ scenario has any explanatory power, except as an expression of your own personal incredulity. A fallacy, by the way.

In fact, you have already SCREAMED out boldly that you never claimed you have evidence for HJ even though you claimed the evidence is TERRIBLE and very weak.

Yes. Does that confuse you ? I don't see a problem, there. Care to guess why ?

You cannot overturn the evidence for Myth Jesus.

HJ is a Myth.

You are a far cry from proving that.

 

[Belz...]

The vast majority of Christians typically use the Bible to argue that Jesus existed and do so without external corroborative evidence.

There are billions of Christians.

It is most logical that it is a very very high probability that those who use the Bible to argue that Jesus existed without external corroboration are indeed Christians or in the closet especially when they believe Paul's delusions or lies.

Why would a non-Christian believe Paul's delusions or lies?

I've got one better for you: why would a Christian believe Jesus had no supernatural nature or power, or wasn't resurrected ?

 

[Belz...]

No, No, No!!! You are suggesting Jesus existence is plausible by rejecting the evidence that he was a figure of Mythology.

No, we are saying that he is plausible because:

1) Such a person isn't impossible.
2) Other such people existed back then.
3) It fits with the history we know.

Your "reasoning" is simply that there are mythological elements in the story. We have defeated this argument weeks ago. You have nothing to stand on.

You lose.

 

[dejudge]

Your evidence that Jesus was a mythological character is little different from the evidence that Kim Jong-il was a mythical character.

Your statement is absolutely bizarre. Kim Jong il is a documented figure of history. Jesus of Nazareth is a documented figure of mythology.

There are eyewitness accounts of Kim Jong il and his genealogy is documented.

There are no eyewitness of Jesus and his genealogy is documented as the ONLY begotten Son of God. Effectively, Jesus of Nazareth had no grandparents.

There are people outside of Korea who wrote about Kim Jong il.

No-one outside the Bible and Apologetics wrote a single thing about Jesus of Nazareth.

By the way, you are writing about Kim Jong il today because you have heard of or has seen him but there is no evidence whatsoever that any person had ever seen or heard of Jesus of Nazareth not even those who supposedly wrote his "biography"--the Son of a Ghost.

 

[dejudge]

...Is it too complicated for you to understand that people can say false things about someone who may have really existed, or that they can be deluded about that person?

Is it too complicated for you to understand that Adam and Eve in Genesis were not real people?

Is it too complicated for you to understand that Satan the Devil who tempted Jesus at the Jewish Temple was not a real person?

It is too complicated for you to understand that the angel Gabriel was not a real person even though he was the one who told Mary about her conception by the Ghost ?

Is it too complicated for you to understand that Romulus the founder of Rome was not a real person even though it is claimed he had a human mother and a human brother?

Is it too complicated for you to understand that Jesus of Nazareth has NO actual history?

It is an extremely simple matter.

Jesus of Nazareth perfectly matches the mythology of the Jews, Greeks and Romans.

Jesus was probably the greatest myth story in the history of mankind--even atheists believe he was real when it is documented publicly that he WALKED on the SEA and transfigured like a magnificent fairy.


Long live Myth Jesus!!

Myth Jesus can never die.

The HJ argument cannot resurrect.

 

[dejudge]

...Who's accepting it as an historical source? It's being examined forensically to determine what it might tell us about the people who wrote those stories and why they wrote them. You're so stuck on denigrating the Bible that you can't even approach it from that perspective.

Your statement is hopelessly contradictory. You reject the NT as history yet accuse me of denigrating the Bible.

Something is radically wrong.

You reject the Pauline claims about the resurrection yet accuse me of denigrating the Bible.

You have failed to understand that people who argue that Jesus was a human being MUST denigrate the Bible.

In the Bible Jesus was God Creator.

You have denigrated the NT because you REJECT the claims about Jesus as God Creator and those made by Paul about the resurrection.

 

[Craig B]

What a laugh!! It is your position that is ludricous. You cannot present any Pauline manuscripts dated to c 37-62 CE.

You have exposed that you are not aware of the evidence from antiquity.

The earliest Pauline manuscripts [P 46] are dated around the start of the 3rd century.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri

Dear heavens dejudge, can't you see that's my point? People including me have been reminding you that the earliest extant manuscripts even of writers like Josephus and Julius Caesar and Tacitus and Lucretius date from the Middle Ages. Do we conclude that these writers lived in the Middle Ages? No. Do we conclude that their works were forged in the Middle Ages? One scholar did, Jean Hardouin (1646-1729), and everyone agreed he was off his head. He stated that

the ancient classics of Greece and Rome were spurious, having been manufactured by monks of the 13th century, under the direction of a certain Severus Archontius.

What was so wrong with this notion? Internal evidence suggests a much earlier date. Julius Caesar is known to history. Paul is not in the public record (an obscure preacher writing to assemblies of a tiny sect) but there are notices in his works that date them, as we have seen, including Aretas and the Jerusalem temple. It is therefore not ludicrous to accept this date in preference to the date of the earliest manuscripts. On the contrary, the survival of manuscripts is a matter of chance, or of the changing preferences of readers, and can't be used as the primary evidence for dating the texts they contain.

 

[Brainache]

There are only nine and a half hours left before your ultimate defeat dejudge.

I hope you've got your fake second century bags packed...

Time's up dejudge.

You lose.

You have to leave now.

Bye.

 

[Craig B]

Your statement is absolutely bizarre. Kim Jong il is a documented figure of history. Jesus of Nazareth is a documented figure of mythology.

Interesting that this example should be raised. Kim Jong il is indeed a figure of history, but he is also a figure of mythology, and the official N Korean accounts of his life contain a birth legend (it's mentioned in the list of charges against Kim Jong un's late uncle, so it fulfils a role in the DPRK's state ideology)

North Korean legend has it that Kim was born on Mount Paekdu, one of Korea's most cherished sites, in 1942, a birth heralded in the heavens by a pair of rainbows and a brilliant new star. Soviet records, however, indicate he was born in Siberia, in 1941.

That is, while his parents were in exile in the Soviet Union during the Japanese occupation of Korea.

So Kim is a figure of mythology. Does that prevent him from being a real person too? Not at all! We know he was both real and mythical. Therefore it is possible to be real and mythical. Therefore it is not absurd to suggest that Jesus was also such a figure. This reasoning does NOT prove Jesus existed. It shows that the absurd stories about his birth don't prove he did not exist. And some of the sources in the Gospels, including two of the four gospels as a whole, know nothing of the miracle birth, which indicates that it was inserted for ideological reasons, like the Mt Paekdu legend.

 

[maximara]

here is only one Jesus of Nazareth--his conception and birth is documented. He was born of a Ghost and a Virgin, God Creator who transfigured after he walked on sea water.

Actually Paul in Romans 1:1-3 states that Jesus came "from the seed of David, according to the flesh" (the belief at the time was that women were the earth into which men planted their seed so here Paul expressly states that Jesus link to David is through the male line ie Joseph) and in Galatians 4:4 stated “God sent his Son, born of a woman” using the word gune (woman) rather than parthenos (virgin).

Both these points show that Paul not only did not know of a virgin birth but expressly denied it.

More over the first version of Luke recorded (c130 CE) ,which Marcion claimed it was written by Paul starts, at Luke 3:1 ie skipping the birth story. Though his detractors claimed he "mangled" Luke it is just as possible the whole virgin birth story was a latter added on.

Caesar Augustus and Alexander the Great both of whom had contemporary accounts written of them were claimed to be born of virgins.

Being born of virgin was the ancient equivalent of saying 'they were born with a silver spoon in their mouth' and it was never meant to be taken literary. Taking the passage as literal has the same effect as Tex Avery's 1951 Symphony in Slang...it just makes a mess of things.

 

[Belz...]

Your statement is absolutely bizarre. Kim Jong il is a documented figure of history. Jesus of Nazareth is a documented figure of mythology.

Yes !! That's the point. Both have mythological elements in their stories, but at least one is a historical person, proving that the presence of said elements DOES NOT make a character mythical.

 

[Belz...]

You reject the Pauline claims about the resurrection yet accuse me of denigrating the Bible.

You're the only one interpreting the bible literally.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Your statement is absolutely bizarre. Kim Jong il is a documented figure of history. Jesus of Nazareth is a documented figure of mythology.

There are eyewitness accounts of Kim Jong il and his genealogy is documented.

There are no eyewitness of Jesus and his genealogy is documented as the ONLY begotten Son of God. Effectively, Jesus of Nazareth had no grandparents.

There are people outside of Korea who wrote about Kim Jong il.

No-one outside the Bible and Apologetics wrote a single thing about Jesus of Nazareth.

By the way, you are writing about Kim Jong il today because you have heard of or has seen him but there is no evidence whatsoever that any person had ever seen or heard of Jesus of Nazareth not even those who supposedly wrote his "biography"--the Son of a Ghost.

You really don't get it.

I was addressing your argument that the supernatural claims about Jesus are evidence that he can only be mythical. That argument is shown to be fallacious by the fact that there are people who's historicity you do not dispute, about whom supernatural stories were made up.

The reason we are certain of Kim Jong-il's historicity is because he was the conspicuously bizarre leader of an entire nation and he just died two years ago, in an age of instantaneous global mass communication. An historical Jesus would have been a nobody outside his local region, living in an age of mass illiteracy in which news could travel no faster than people could walk. If you really think that Kim Jong-il is an example of the sort of contemporaneous life documentation that we should expect to have for a poor, itinerant preacher from a backwater corner of the Empire, then JaysonR is completely correct regarding your gross ignorance of basic anthropology.