Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Belz...]

It is illogical that the Gospels were written after Paul's Epistles. Such a scenario makes no sense at all.

You forget that a Pauline writer admitted that over 500 persons, plus the 12, Cephas and James was seen of the resurrected Jesus BEFORE him.

You forget that a Pauline writer claimed that there were Churches in Christ BEFORE him.

Over 500 persons knew the story of the resurrected Jesus BEFORE Paul.

In fact, a Pauline writer claimed he was the LAST to be seen of resurrected Jesus.

Now, if Jesus did ACTUALLY LIVE then the actual story of Jesus MUST have been known before the Pauline Corpus.

If Jesus did ACTUALLY LIVE and did ACTUALLY PREACH then the Jesus story was known before the Pauline Corpus.

If Jesus was ACTUALLY DEAD before Paul preached Christ crucified then the Jesus story was already known BEFORE the Pauline Corpus.

If Paul presecuted the followers of Jesus AFTER he was ACTUALLY DEAD then the Jesus story was known before the Pauline Corpus.

Origen and Eusebius claimed Paul knew the Gospel according to gLuke.

The author of the Muratorian Canon claimed Paul wrote the Epistles AFTER Revelation by John was already composed.

The story of Jesus from Conception to Ascension was known by Paul.

You are conflating two things (I have the odd impression of seeing a pattern, here) : The gospels, and the story of Jesus.

As far as I know, nobody is claiming that the Gospels were the original stories of Jesus. Are you ?

 

[Belz...]

If non-Jews wanted to hijack the Messiah, they had to hijack and reinterpret the prophecies about the Messiah.

Makes sense. But why would they want to hijack a Jewish Messiah ?

I was under the impression that this was one of your arguments, Craig. Did I confuse you with another poster ?

 

[TimCallahan]

Read James Barr Mitchell's Chrestos: a religious epithet; its import and influence for some background.

Pleket, H.W.; Stroud, R.S.. "Egypt. Funerary epithets in Egypt.(26-1702)." Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. Current editors: A. T. R.S. R.A. Chaniotis Corsten Stroud Tybout. Brill Online, 2013. is another work to look at.

Thanks. I'll get down to the Fuller Theological Seminary's library early in the new year to look at James Barr Mitchell's Chrestos.

In the meantime, I have two questions you could perhaps answer. First, if those referred to by Tacitus as "Chrestians" are not Christians but worshippers of Serapis, what, exactly would have made them targets of general hatred, hence easy scapegoats for Nero to use?

Second, what do you think of those Christians Pliny the Younger was prosecuting ca. CE 110? Were these, in your opinion, not necessarily what we would consider Christians, as dejudge has asserted, or do you think they were actual Christians of the sort whose religion eventually became the Christian religion of today? In his letter, Pliny had those accused of being Christians, who deny the charge, prove it by not only cursing Christ, but as well by burning incense to the emperor. This implies that the Christians he was Prosecuting refused to make the token sacrifice to the emperor. This would fit exclusive monotheism, for which the Jews got a grudging pass from the Romans as an ancient people, but which was not acceptable for others.

 

[Craig B]

In his letter, Pliny had those accused of being Christians, who deny the charge, prove it by not only cursing Christ, but as well by burning incense to the emperor. This implies that the Christians he was Prosecuting refused to make the token sacrifice to the emperor. This would fit exclusive monotheism, for which the Jews got a grudging pass from the Romans as an ancient people, but which was not acceptable for others.

Pliny notes that the people he's investigating gather to sing hymns "christo quasi deo", "to the christ, as if he was a god". Why should that be noteworthy if they were followers of Serapis? Of course they worship Serapis as a God. That's what Serapis is! It's noteworthy however if people worship the Messiah as a God, because to the people Pliny was already familiar with, the messiah is emphatically not a god. Believing that the messiah is a divinity is a Christian peculiarity.

 

[dejudge]

It can be easily deduced that the Jesus story and cult did not originate with Jews because we have Christian writers of antiquity who claimed the Jews KILLED the Christian's Savior.

Christian writers claimed the Jews did not acknowledge that their Christ had already come.

In all writings by Apologetics against Jews there is no acknowledgment of any known Jew outside the NT who was a follower of Jesus up to c 70 CE--None.

1. Justin's Dialogue With Trypho the Jew--No Jew outside the Gospels is named as a Christian or follower of Jesus during the 1st century.

2. Tertullian's "Answer to the Jews"--No Jew outside the NT is named as a follower of Jesus and worshiped himas God up to c 70 CE.

3. Hippolytus "Treatise Against the Jews--No Jew outside the NT is named as a follower of Jesus and worshiped him as God up to c 70 CE.

The Christian's Christ would exposed that the Jews were Evil.

The Christian's Christ was fabricated to fulfill prophecy.

The Christian's Christ was invented AFTER the Fall of the Jewish Temple c 70 CE.

 

[eight bits]

Belz...

Yeah but they are Jewish prophecies. Excuse me for being slow, but I don't get it.

Not slow at all. If it was easy, Paul wouldn't have been the only one (or among the few) to see the potential.

The prophets and their immediate audience are Jewish. The subject matter of the prophecy is potentially everybody who is righteous, Jewish or Gentile. Paul, a Jew who has studied the prophets, thinks he saw a sign that the Jewish prophecy is being fulfilled, right then and there.

The huge market for this news (good news indeed) is the Gentiles who can get in on the limited time offer. The Jewish market is smaller, already has established vendors (like the James gang), and apprarently presented considerable sales resistance (possibly from competing messianic theories and claimants).

Paul was right, Gentiles ate it up. Maybe some of them were "god fearers" already (and so they knew somethng about the end of days stuff, and agreed with Paul that seeing a ghost meant the time had come). But my understanding is that many Gentiles with no special relationship with the synagogues respected Jewish learning, the ancientness of the Jewish religion, and maybe even appreciated the Egyptian connection of the Jewish legendary "history."

If you believed in prophecy and the occult anyway, you might take an interest in the prophets of groups besides your own, especially if there was something in it for you.

Hope that helps.

Craig B

Pliny notes that the people he's investigating gather to sing hymns "christo quasi deo", "to the christ, as if he was a god". Why should that be noteworthy if they were followers of Serapis? Of course they worship Serapis as a God. That's what Serapis is! It's noteworthy however if people worship the Messiah as a God, because to the people Pliny was already familiar with, the messiah is emphatically not a god. Believing that the messiah is a divinity is a Christian peculiarity.

I think that's especially well put. Bravo.

 

[dejudge]

HJers themselves argue that there were many messianic pretenders so it cannot be assumed that the title Christ can only refer to Jesus.

We have been throuhg this many times.

1. In the NT itself, it is claimed many will come in the name of Christ and shall deceive.

2. In gMark itself, there was another person who was using the name Christ.

3. Some Christians preached about another God and another son--Not Jesus.

4. Theophilus of Antioch called himself a Christian but only believe in God and not once mentioned Jesus.

5. Athenagoras of Athens called himself a Christian did not once mention Jesus.

It cannot be assumed that the word Christ only refers to Jesus.

 

[Craig B]

Makes sense. But why would they want to hijack a Jewish Messiah ?

I was under the impression that this was one of your arguments, Craig. Did I confuse you with another poster ?

No, that's one of my arguments. The non-Jews adopted the messiah as processed by Paul, that is, as the being whose self sacrifice paid the price of human sin. People who participated in the worship of this being were the unique beneficiaries of this sacrifice, and were rewarded with everlasting life. From Romans 5

12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned ... 16 ... The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man [Adam] death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!

This, of course, is not really a "Jewish Messiah", but Paul turned a would-be Jewish messiah into this being who redeemed humankind from sin. The messiah was the raw material he worked up into this figure who undid the effects of Adam's "trespass". This was of course more acceptable to Gentiles who had no previous notion of a messiah. To most of those who did - the Jews - it must have seemed bizarre, and it was not accepted by them. See also http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_atone2.htm

Theologian and author Paul Alan Laughlin writes: "Paul's reference to 'life' in the next to last sentence of this passage does not mean the earthly life of the historical Jesus, but the 'life' of the risen and ascended Christ." The circumstances of Jesus' conception, the personal example that he provided, the content of his preaching, the miracles that he performed, his other actions, etc. are had relatively little impact on atonement. Laughlin continues: "...only the death of Jesus on the cross...is the key to human salvation....For Paul, only two things were important about Jesus: his alleged divinity and his atoning death. Together these and these alone made human salvation possible."

Whereas for normative Judaism the actions of the living Messiah, a righteous and legitimate God-appointed ruler, not a divine being in his own right, were the important thing.

 

[Craig B]

... We have been throuhg this many times.

Oh, how very true! ...

5. Athenagoras of Athens called himself a Christian did not once mention Jesus.

It cannot be assumed that the word Christ only refers to Jesus.

From Athenagoras. See http://www.christianity.com/church/...henagoras-pleads-for-christians-11629608.html

Nor let anyone think it ridiculous that God should have a Son. For though the poets, in their fictions, represent the gods as no better than men, our mode of thinking is not the same as theirs, concerning either God the Father or the Son. But the Son of God is the Logos of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one.
And the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding and reason of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind, had the Logos in Himself, being from eternity instinct with Logos) but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things ...

Looks like Christian doctrine to me, dejudge. I admit Athenagoras doesn't call the Son, or Logos, by the names Jesus or Christ, but why should he? He's writing to the emperor Marcus Aurelius, who was interested in Greek philosophy, and Athenagoras is expressing gJohn style ideas in terms which might appear convincing to such a person. The name Jesus, and his identification with Jewish messianic ideas (as a "christ"), are much less relevant in this particular context, and would serve no purpose here.

 

[dejudge]

The non-Jews adopted the messiah as processed by Paul, that is, as the being whose self sacrifice paid the price of human sin. People who participated in the worship of this being were the unique beneficiaries of this sacrifice, and were rewarded with everlasting life.

So what did the Historical Jesus preach BEFORE Paul? You keep forgeting about Your HJ.

You keep forgetting the chronology.

Your HJ was first. HJ was crucified. Your HJ was buried.

PAUL persecuted the followers of YOUR REALLY DEAD HJ.

What did the followers of YOUR DEAD HJ preach when they were persecuted by PAUL?

Your DEAD HJ visited over 500 persons, plus Cephas, James, Paul and the twelve disciples??

PAUL got his Gospel from YOUR DEAD HJ??

What role did YOUR REALLY DEAD HJ play in the early development of the Jesus cult?

YOUR REALLY DEAD HJ did not resurrect, right??

WHO TOLD PAUL YOUR REALLY DEAD HJ resurrected??

1 Corinthians 15:17 NAS

and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless ; you are still in your sins.

There is something quite wrong with the Pauline Corprus if YOUR HJ was REALLY DEAD.

 

[Craig B]

dejudge, I really have no idea what you're on about in your post #2490. Both the Christians who had been acquainted with Jesus in life, and Paul who had not, believed Jesus had stopped being DEAD and had come alive again. That's what their faith was all about. Now you and I know that Jesus didn't REALLY come alive again, but THEY thought that. Now you'll recall that Paul had interacted in a hostile manner with Jesus' followers previous to his conversion, so he must have been familiar with their ideas, and then Paul has his vision of Jesus, or at least hears voices in his head, and presumably thinks, Wow! These guys were right after all!

Paul got his gospel from the dead HJ? No, dejudge. Whoever the HJ may have been, a Cynic philosopher, a wandering exorcist, a messianic agitator (all possible things); one thing that HJ people are agreed on is this: the real historical Jesus, if there was one, didn't climb up into the sky and shout messages down to Paul. He really didn't, dejudge, or at least the historic Jesus people don't think he did. Even less do they think Jesus spoke to Paul after he died. Paul got his gospel from an imaginary Jesus by means of revelation, not from the HJ (if he existed) by means of normal human contact, if sky shouting counts as human contact, that is.

 

[Belz...]

It can be easily deduced that the Jesus story and cult did not originate with Jews because we have Christian writers of antiquity who claimed the Jews KILLED the Christian's Savior.

You take the bible at face value.

 

[Belz...]

Paul was right, Gentiles ate it up. Maybe some of them were "god fearers" already (and so they knew somethng about the end of days stuff, and agreed with Paul that seeing a ghost meant the time had come). But my understanding is that many Gentiles with no special relationship with the synagogues respected Jewish learning, the ancientness of the Jewish religion, and maybe even appreciated the Egyptian connection of the Jewish legendary "history."

When you speak of gentiles do you mean those in the area or all around the Empire ?

 

[Belz...]

So what did the Historical Jesus preach BEFORE Paul? You keep forgeting about Your HJ.

You keep forgetting the chronology.

What makes you think that people who disagree with your nonsense do so because of bad memory ? Maybe it's just your bad logic.

 

[TimCallahan]

Pliny notes that the people he's investigating gather to sing hymns "christo quasi deo", "to the christ, as if he was a god". Why should that be noteworthy if they were followers of Serapis? Of course they worship Serapis as a God. That's what Serapis is! It's noteworthy however if people worship the Messiah as a God, because to the people Pliny was already familiar with, the messiah is emphatically not a god. Believing that the messiah is a divinity is a Christian peculiarity.

I looked up the article on line on the significance of the epithet Chrestus that Maximara mentioned, no need, after all, for me make a trip into town to find it. It seems that Christos ("anointed") and Chrestos ("good" or "excellent") were used interchangeably by Christians for their savior in the early centuries of Christianity, and the Chrestos was a common epithet in the Egyptian worship of both Serapis and of Isis and Osiris. There certainly would have been a lot of borrowing on the part of the syncretist Christians; so overlapping imagery and philosophies between Serapis and Christ would be reasonable.

As to those Pliny was prosecuting, there doesn't seem to me to be any reason the Romans would have outlawed the worship of Serapis; nor does there seem to be any reason that worshippers of Serapis would have refused to burn incense to the emperor as a token sacrifice.

 

[JaysonR]

Quite, Tim.
Serapis christians would not be unknown to any Roman leader, nor would any be prosecuting them, as it was an officially recognized and designed religion of Rome.

 

[dejudge]

]

dejudge, I really have no idea what you're on about in your post #2490. Both the Christians who had been acquainted with Jesus in life, and Paul who had not, believed Jesus had stopped being DEAD and had come alive again. That's what their faith was all about. Now you and I know that Jesus didn't REALLY come alive again, but THEY thought that. Now you'll recall that Paul had interacted in a hostile manner with Jesus' followers previous to his conversion, so he must have been familiar with their ideas, and then Paul has his vision of Jesus, or at least hears voices in his head, and presumably thinks, Wow! These guys were right after all!

Paul got his gospel from the dead HJ? No, dejudge. Whoever the HJ may have been, a Cynic philosopher, a wandering exorcist, a messianic agitator (all possible things); one thing that HJ people are agreed on is this: the real historical Jesus, if there was one, didn't climb up into the sky and shout messages down to Paul. He really didn't, dejudge, or at least the historic Jesus people don't think he did. Even less do they think Jesus spoke to Paul after he died. Paul got his gospel from an imaginary Jesus by means of revelation, not from the HJ (if he existed) by means of normal human contact, if sky shouting counts as human contact, that is.

The problem with your HJ argument is that you keep forgetting that YOUR HJ should have lived before Paul.

You keep forgetting that YOUR HJ would have been known to others before he was dead.

You keep forgetting that Paul would have been a known liar if Jesus was just a dead Zealot, a dead Cynic, a dead rabbi, a dead itinerant preacher or a dead messianic pretender.

You keep forgetting that Paul could not get historical accounts of YOUR HJ from hallucinations.

You keep forgetting that YOUR DEAD HJ told Paul NOTHING.

You keep forgetting that GOD told Paul nothing about YOUR HJ.

You keep forgetting that there is no corroboration at all in the NT for the Pauline Corpus.

You keep forgeting that the Pauline Jesus was a Spirit.


1 Corinthians 15:45 KJV

And so it is written , The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

YOUR DEAD HJ was unknown by Paul.

 

[Craig B]

Quite, Tim.
Serapis christians would not be unknown to any Roman leader, nor would any be prosecuting them, as it was an officially recognized and designed religion of Rome.

Serapis is a remarkable example of a god consciously designed by known individuals for political purposes. The fact that such a god could happily be accepted and worshipped by people well aware of, or who could easily find out about, his origin, tells us a great deal about the nature of religion. See wiki.

Under Ptolemy Soter, efforts were made to integrate Egyptian religion with that of their Hellenic rulers. Ptolemy's policy was to find a deity that should win the reverence alike of both groups ... The Greeks had little respect for animal-headed figures, and so a Greek-style anthropomorphic statue was chosen as the idol, and proclaimed as the equivalent of the highly popular Apis. It was named Aser-hapi (i.e. Osiris-Apis), which became Serapis, and was said to be Osiris in full, rather than just his Ka (life force).

The ideology behind the invention of Serapis in Ptolemaic times was congenial to later Romans, and there was no suppression of the cult up to the advent of Christianity as the sole state religion.

Serapis continued to increase in popularity during the Roman period, often replacing Osiris as the consort of Isis in temples outside Egypt. In 389, a mob led by the Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria destroyed the Alexandrian Serapeum, but the cult survived until all forms of religion other than Nicene Christianity were suppressed or abolished under Theodosius I in 391.

 

[Craig B]

you keep forgetting that YOUR HJ should have lived before Paul.
You keep forgetting that YOUR HJ would have been known to others before he was dead.
You keep forgetting that Paul would have been a known liar if Jesus was just a dead Zealot, a dead Cynic, a dead rabbi, a dead itinerant preacher or a dead messianic pretender.
You keep forgetting that Paul could not get historical accounts of YOUR HJ from hallucinations.
You keep forgetting that YOUR DEAD HJ told Paul NOTHING.
You keep forgetting that GOD told Paul nothing about YOUR HJ.
You keep forgetting that there is no corroboration at all in the NT for the Pauline Corpus.
You keep forgeting that the Pauline Jesus was a spirit.

No. I don't forget things. I simply think that your lists of statements about dead Jesuses and so on are absurd, because both the early Jesus followers and Paul believed Jesus had returned to life.

You keep forgetting that Paul would have been a known liar if Jesus was just a dead Zealot, a dead Cynic, a dead rabbi, a dead itinerant preacher or a dead messianic pretender.

That is particularly nonsensical. Paul makes almost no statements about Jesus' life. One he does make is that Jesus acquired his powers at the resurrection; so he didn't perceive Jesus as a dead anything. Of course Paul was either lying, or more likely deluded, in stating that Jesus came back from the dead, but so what? What on earth does that have to do with anything being argued here?

 

[JaysonR]

Serapis is a remarkable example of a god consciously designed by known individuals for political purposes. The fact that such a god could happily be accepted and worshipped by people well aware of, or who could easily find out about, his origin, tells us a great deal about the nature of religion. See wiki. The ideology behind the invention of Serapis in Ptolemaic times was congenial to later Romans, and there was no suppression of the cult up to the advent of Christianity as the sole state religion.

Quite.
Roman culture was very open and free-form with creating and modifying religions.
The religions which found problem under Roman rule were those which denied worshipping the emperor and instead, from a Roman perspective, worshipped a different human being.
You could worship nearly any gods of choice, but only one human was permitted to be worshipped.

As such, Pliny's account is very narrow in possibility and effectively only applies to the new flare of messianic worshipping coming out of the Levant region through exposed Hellenist ports.
Which messianic following Pliny was dealing with is not certain, but it is reasonable to deduce that they were messianic worshippers fom what is described of them and their rituals.