Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

I want to look at this one point for the moment. Why should these Corinthians have seen Jesus or personally met him, even if they were old enough to have done so? Corinth is a considerable distance from Galilee or Jerusalem and Paul's Corinthian followers may not have been recruited mostly from Jews, but from former pagans or at best "God-fearers" who acknowledged the Jewish god as the unique Divinity, but did not convert to Judaism, or obey the full range of dietary and other laws. Why should such a group in that place consist of people who had known Jesus? That Paul's followers in foreign lands were not in immediate constant contact with Jerusalem is indicated in Acts 21 .

If I read his letters correctly, in 1-Galations 13-14 Paul says that the earlier Christians who he had persecuted, were those of the “Church of God”, which he says is in Corinth in Greece … and then he writes in 1-Corinthians 15:3-8 to those in the Church of God in Corinth telling them of his vision of the risen “Christ“ (though he does not say there that the “Christ“ was named Yehoshua (Jesus) ). It was supposed to have actually been written in Ephesus on the coast of Turkey and about 200 miles from Corinth….. he is supposed to have travelled all over the place from as far apart as Jerusalem to Rome, though I don’t know how feasible that was prior to 60AD?

 

[maximara]

That's been discussed. It is agreed that in Pliny's case the Christian group may be identified with the Jesus figure.

The argument can also be made that the Christian group could have been referring to someone else who took up the title of "Christ". Pliny give no real details.

Suetonius (have we discussed him?) has a "Chrestus" organising disturbances among the Jewish population of Rome. (Claudius 25) That may well not have been Jesus the Nazarene - I agree it's not in the gospels - unless Suetonius got completely muddled, which is by no means impossible.

Suetonius' commented about Christians in with regard to Nero so he seems to have enough information to tell the difference between Jews and Christians. Never mind not only is "Chrestus" a very common name but it is also used as a title. For example there is an inscription to "Isis Chreste" (ΙΣΙΔΙ ΧΡΗΣΤΗ) on the Boeckh Corp. Inscr.

Another interesting fact is nefer (the Egyptian equivalent of "Chrestus") is hieroglyph F35 which looks for all the world like a cross stuck on top of a heart and has been found on temples going back to 2,000 BCE!

 

[Craig B]

... Another interesting fact is nefer (the Egyptian equivalent of "Chrestus") is hieroglyph F35 which looks for all the world like a cross stuck on top of a heart and has been found on temples going back to 2,000 BCE!

A different identification of the symbol is made by Egyptologists, I think.

However, the hieroglyph is actually the heart and trachea. It originally may have been the esophagus and heart. The striations of the windpipe only appear in the hieroglyph following the Old Kingdom. The lower part of the sign has always clearly been the heart, for the markings clearly follow the form of a sheep's heart.

See also http://www.egyptianmyths.net/nefer.htm.

 

[The Norseman]

The point is that there are thousands of Historians in the world and the Historicity of Jesus is just not controversial. The silence is deafening on the subject.

Most of the people publishing on the HJ subject are either Apologists, like IanS mentions, or fringe theorists like Carrier and Doherty.

Yes, perhaps you're right. However that does not mean that the ideas and concepts that Carrier provides are inherently dismissible.

Please, show me one person in all of these threads that has ever contextually tackled BT and Carriers concepts based around BT. Once people start demonstrating that Carrier is incorrect, then I'll start to believe them. Until then, it's all just so much hot air.

When the Experts start taking those guys seriously, so will I.

When the experts start tackling Baye's Theorem then I'll start to take them seriously.

I think that was shot down fairly promptly.

I could be wrong, but I don't recall any sensible arguments from dejudge, just the stupid "it's all fake" nonsense.

Early on, when he first started posting, I thought that he had made several good points. I will be honest and say that I don't actually remember them off hand. It was before all of this rather childish sniping. It's okay if you do not believe me or are waiting for me to provide a link; I probably won't at this point because I'd rather focus on other aspects of the discussion.

 

[moogspaceport]

You have zero evidence for your understanding. We have already gone through the stories of Jesus in the NT.

I just think it's reasonable to expect that someone who was that well-known, and in particular well-known for being a "miracle-worker", would have been mentioned by contemporary writers outside the context of the religious faithful. These kinds of folks were numerous in the ancient world. Yet, despite this, they are silent on Jesus. Now while I concede to you that doesn't mean he was a fantasy concocted out of thin air, it does seem to indicate that neither was he famous, or even well-known, outside of a small group of the faithful.

 

[Brainache]

Yes, perhaps you're right. However that does not mean that the ideas and concepts that Carrier provides are inherently dismissible.

Please, show me one person in all of these threads that has ever contextually tackled BT and Carriers concepts based around BT. Once people start demonstrating that Carrier is incorrect, then I'll start to believe them. Until then, it's all just so much hot air.

When the experts start tackling Baye's Theorem then I'll start to take them seriously.

...

Jayson has made a stab at it. I'm no expert on Bayes Theorem, but like Jayson says, it can probably be useful in some areas, but the problem with most Ancient History is the quality of the data.

It doesn't matter what method you use to analyse it, subjective assessment will always be a part of it. Formalising the process doesn't remove the subjective element, it just assigns a number to it.

The problem remains: GIGO.

 

[Brainache]

I just think it's reasonable to expect that someone who was that well-known, and in particular well-known for being a "miracle-worker", would have been mentioned by contemporary writers outside the context of the religious faithful. These kinds of folks were numerous in the ancient world. Yet, despite this, they are silent on Jesus. Now while I concede to you that doesn't mean he was a fantasy concocted out of thin air, it does seem to indicate that neither was he famous, or even well-known, outside of a small group of the faithful.

I think it is possible that Jesus was only leading the group for a short time. If he was only there for a year or two, there may not have been time for his fame to spread very far in his lifetime. His predecessor in the stories, John The Baptist, was too popular for Herod's comfort, so he chopped his head off.

Jesus' successor James, who was in charge from Jesus' death until 64 CE, was so popular that Josephus blamed the war on his unlawful killing by the Establishment Priesthood (according to early versions).

So I think Jesus may have been part of a large movement, but only briefly.

 

[moogspaceport]

I think it is possible that Jesus was only leading the group for a short time. If he was only there for a year or two, there may not have been time for his fame to spread very far in his lifetime. His predecessor in the stories, John The Baptist, was too popular for Herod's comfort, so he chopped his head off.

Jesus' successor James, who was in charge from Jesus' death until 64 CE, was so popular that Josephus blamed the war on his unlawful killing by the Establishment Priesthood (according to early versions).

So I think Jesus may have been part of a large movement, but only briefly.

I think that's a very reasonable explanation.

 

[eight bits]

Brainache

Jayson has made a stab at it. I'm no expert on Bayes Theorem, but like Jayson says, it can probably be useful in some areas, but the problem with most Ancient History is the quality of the data.

I'll ask you what I asked him, but open it up a bit to make it easier to answer Do you have any evidence, argument or demonstrative proof that the Bayesian approach to uncertain inference performs less well than any method of your choice when the available data are of low "quality," meagre quaniity or of nearly equivocal bearing?

It doesn't matter what method you use to analyse it, subjective assessment will always be a part of it.

Which is true of all methods of contingent uncertain inference. What is true of all candidates doesn't distinguish among the candidates or tell their relative merits.

Formalising the process doesn't remove the subjective element, it just assigns a number to it.

Really? And what is the alternative to formalizing the process? Is it your testimony now that the "historical method" is informal after all?

Do you have any evidence, argument or proof that qualitative probabilistic methods that do not involve the assignment of numbers (for example, George Polya's plauisble inference), but do impose a "probabilistic" structure on inference, perform less well than any method of your choice (except quantitative Bayesian inference) under any circumstances?

 

[dejudge]

I just think it's reasonable to expect that someone who was that well-known, and in particular well-known for being a "miracle-worker", would have been mentioned by contemporary writers outside the context of the religious faithful. These kinds of folks were numerous in the ancient world. Yet, despite this, they are silent on Jesus. Now while I concede to you that doesn't mean he was a fantasy concocted out of thin air, it does seem to indicate that neither was he famous, or even well-known, outside of a small group of the faithful.

That is precisely the evidence that shows Jesus the Christ of Nazareth was a myth.

Jesus of Nazareth in the NT was WELL KNOWN, a healer of people in Galilee, feeding thousands of hungry people, raising the dead, was in arguments with the Pharisees and Saducees.

Within 50 days of the crucifixion the Apostles and Paul of the NT sometime later, should have been all over the Roman Empire telling people that Jesus the Son of God, God Creator was crucified and resurrected for the Remission of Sins.

Before c 70 CE, there should have been THOUSANDS of Believers and Churches of the Jesus cult in major cities of the Roman Empire including Rome

There is no trace of the Churches, the Apostles, Jesus and Paul in non-apologetic writings.

We can find John the Baptist in Josephus.

We can find over 5 persons called Jesus in Josephus but none called Jesus of Nazareth.

We can't find Jesus, the Apostles and Paul at all in contemporary non-apologetic sources.

Jesus, the Apostles and Paul are Fake 1st century characters.

Josephus, Philo, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the elder and Pliny the younger mentioned characters that were far less popular that Jesus of Nazareth, the Apostles and Paul in the NT.

 

[pakeha]

...According to Robert Eisenman (yes I am a broken record, sorry), Talmudic Tradition says that for the 40 or so years prior to the destruction of the Temple, the Sanhedrin were not meeting in the "Stone Chamber" in the Temple, like they were supposed to and therefore, the Rabbis later decided that all capital punishments pronounced during that period were illegal.

There is also the issue that Agrippa I didn't have Authority in Jerusalem. The south was under the control of the Roman Governor, not the Jews. Jews were given more power in the south later when Agrippa II was installed as Tetrarch.

The Roman title of "Governor" was then changed to "Procurator" and they were mainly in charge of collecting the taxes, not running the country (disastrously) as they had been.

I suspect it was because Claudius was friends with Agrippa II and thought he'd do a better job than the Roman toadies who had been bungling it til then.

That's very interesting, of course. Thanks, Brainache!

 

[dejudge]

I think it is possible that Jesus was only leading the group for a short time. If he was only there for a year or two, there may not have been time for his fame to spread very far in his lifetime. His predecessor in the stories, John The Baptist, was too popular for Herod's comfort, so he chopped his head off.

Your statement is most amusing. The very Gospels which state that Herod chopped off John the Baptist head are the very Gospels which state Jesus was known by THOUSANDS of people in Galilee.

There is no claim anywhere that thousands of people followed John the Baptist on a daily basis and there is no statement about how long John was baptising people yet you conveniently accept the popularity of John the Baptist.

Jesus' successor James, who was in charge from Jesus' death until 64 CE, was so popular that Josephus blamed the war on his unlawful killing by the Establishment Priesthood (according to early versions).

So I think Jesus may have been part of a large movement, but only briefly.

We have been through this already. No such thing can be found in the writings of Josephus. Origen's statement is without corroboration in the existing copies of all the works of Josephus.

And further, no Apologetic writer before Origen claimed the Jewish Temple fell because of James the Just.

Apologetics BEFORE Origen claimed the Jewish Temple fell because the Jews KILLED the Son of God.

Justin Martyr, Tertullian, an Hippolytus all claimed the Fall of the Temple was caused by the Killing of Jesus Christ and that it was PREDICTED by Daniel in the Septuagint.

Justin's Dialogue with Trypho

... you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and [/b]your cities burned with fire[/b]; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.' For you are not recognised among the rest of men by any other mark than your fleshly circumcision. For none of you, I suppose, will venture to say that God neither did nor does foresee the events, which are future, nor foreordained his deserts for each one.

Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him..

Hippolytus "Expository Treatise Against the Jews

7. But why, O prophet, tell us, and for what reason, was the temple made desolate? Was it on account of that ancient fabrication of the calf? Was it on account of the idolatry of the people? Was it for the blood of the prophets? Was it for the adultery and fornication of Israel? By no means, he says; for in all these transgressions they always found pardon open to them, and benignity; but it was because they killed the Son of their Benefactor, for He is coeternal with the Father.

 

[Brainache]

Your statement is most amusing. The very Gospels which state that Herod chopped off John the Baptist head are the very Gospels which state Jesus was known by THOUSANDS of people in Galilee.

There is no claim anywhere that thousands of people followed John the Baptist on a daily basis and there is no statement about how long John was baptising people yet you conveniently accept the popularity of John the Baptist.

http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/antiquities-jews/book-18/chapter-5.html

. Now some of the Jews thought that the destruction of Herod's army came from God, and that very justly, as a punishment of what he did against John, that was called the Baptist: for Herod slew him, who was a good man, and commanded the Jews to exercise virtue, both as to righteousness towards one another, and piety towards God, and so to come to baptism; for that the washing [with water] would be acceptable to him, if they made use of it, not in order to the putting away [or the remission] of some sins [only], but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness. Now when [many] others came in crowds about him, for they were very greatly moved [or pleased] by hearing his words, Herod, who feared lest the great influence John had over the people might put it into his power and inclination to raise a rebellion, (for they seemed ready to do any thing he should advise,) thought it best, by putting him to death, to prevent any mischief he might cause, and not bring himself into difficulties, by sparing a man who might make him repent of it when it would be too late. Accordingly he was sent a prisoner, out of Herod's suspicious temper, to Macherus, the castle I before mentioned, and was there put to death. Now the Jews had an opinion that the destruction of this army was sent as a punishment upon Herod, and a mark of God's displeasure to him...

What's that then?

We have been through this already. No such thing can be found in the writings of Josephus. Origen's statement is without corroboration in the existing copies of all the works of Josephus.

And further, no Apologetic writer before Origen claimed the Jewish Temple fell because of James the Just.

Apologetics BEFORE Origen claimed the Jewish Temple fell because the Jews KILLED the Son of God.

Justin Martyr, Tertullian, an Hippolytus all claimed the Fall of the Temple was caused by the Killing of Jesus Christ and that it was PREDICTED by Daniel in the Septuagint.

Justin's Dialogue with Trypho

Quote:
... you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and [/b]your cities burned with fire[/b]; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go up to Jerusalem.' For you are not recognised among the rest of men by any other mark than your fleshly circumcision. For none of you, I suppose, will venture to say that God neither did nor does foresee the events, which are future, nor foreordained his deserts for each one.

Accordingly, these things have happened to you in fairness and justice, for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him..

...

"The Just One" is James The Just, Brother of Jesus.

Wake up.

 

[JaysonR]

I'll ask you what I asked him, but open it up a bit to make it easier to answer Do you have any evidence, argument or demonstrative proof that the Bayesian approach to uncertain inference performs less well than any method of your choice when the available data are of low "quality," meagre quaniity or of nearly equivocal bearing?

That wasn't really my point there, though.

My point was that the data often available in ancient history is too limited and unique for probability functions such as BT, especially BT, if we are discussing Historicity.

The way BT works is by having multiple data sets to input, however, Historicity in Ancient History is often incapable of delivering sufficient volumes of data to feed into for comparison of a phenomenon against the normative.
There is often no normative to compare against.

Using BT on such results in what Carrier did, running the phenomenon against the logic derived from the phenomenon, or, running the data against data not of its kind, but in portion s isolated from the whole.

To use BT on Jesus, for example, we need another figure like in form of textual culture and Ancient record, yet one known to be existent, and would better be served by two or more such examples.
The only real other example is Buddha, but Buddha is in the exact position as Jesus as to the quality of Historicity, so whichever case we assign Buddha, so then would BT likely agree, but that is even poor, for that is only one comparison, where truly we would be more accurate with 3 or even 4 such examples to compare Jesus against, so that our question is accurately "does this figure, of whom several sects and texts arose around, with little evidence otherwise, stand likely to have existed?", as that is the actual question since all inferences from the data about the figure and culture, feeding into BT for comparison against "what people and life was like in ancient X location", is inherently going to cause error as we just assumed that the text is accurate about who and where within the text when no such guarantee is granted, snd while such may be small issue to the Historical method, it is rather s huge issue in BT probability, as it greatly alters what we are actually asking.

As such we are no longer asking if the phenomenon indicates a real person, but are asking if the text matches real expectations of the era we assume it to be addressing.
No, the texts are clearly off on several factors regarding the era we assume them to be discussing; hell, we can't even be certain we have the era right and have to accept a very wide birth of era possibility since the texts discuss things ranging from 1 c BCE to mid to late 1 c CE.

And this is the problem with BT in general for historicity.
Now, though it is slim, if we assume the standard view that Joseph Smith's accounts are not real outside of his mind or account, then we could use BT to compare Joseph Smith to Paul's vision and see the probability that Paul's vision did not occur in reality, but this is even slim for comparison as it is 1 to 1 comparison, where BT is best as applied by Turing and we have hundreds of data bits to enter into the several passes for computation.

One pass and one piece of data back against itself, or against only one other data is going to produce a very limited probability quantification.

It does not suffice to say we'll just add more later, for that is not only unlikely, but accepting multitudes of "it didn't happen" from a position which openly admits it lacks far more information than it will ever be capable of finding.

 

[maximara]

A different identification of the symbol is made by Egyptologists, I think.

Which is totally irreverent to how hieroglyph F35 would have looked to people of the 1st century BCE to 4 century CE. To them it would have looked like a cross on top of a heart.

Remember that the cross didn't become a main stream Christian symbol until the 4th century a period when a lot of oral tradition got added to the Jesus story (the December 25 birth date, the idea that there were three wisemen, and so on)

 

[dejudge]

"The Just One" is James The Just, Brother of Jesus.

Wake up.

What total misrepresentation of Justin's Dialogue with Trypho.

Justin Martyr did NOT mention any character called James in Dialogue with Trypho.

You also forgot that Justin mentioned that the Just One was Christ who was CRUCIFIED and Resurrected in another passage in Dialogue with Trypho.

Justin's Dialogue With Trypho

For other nations have not inflicted on us and on Christ this wrong to such an extent as you have, who in very deed are the authors of the wicked prejudice against the Just One, and us who hold by Him. For after that you had crucified Him, the only blameless and righteous Man,-- through whose swipes those who approach the Father by Him are healed,--when you knew that He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the prophets foretold He would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness which you had committed, but at that time you selected and sent out from Jerusalem chosen men through all the land to tell that the godless heresy of the Christians had sprung up, and to publish those things which all they who knew us not speak against us.

You really have no evidence for your UNKNOWN dead HJ and is just compounding your problems by making blatant mis-leading statements about Justin's Dialogue with Trypho.

Justin never once mentioned a character called James.

 

[dejudge]

That wasn't really my point there, though.

My point was that the data often available in ancient history is too limited and unique for probability functions such as BT, especially BT, if we are discussing Historicity.

Your claim cannot be shown to be true. You are not an Historian. Richard Carrier is.

Isn't Carrier peer-reviewed?

Do you have any peer reviewed books on History? Why should people on the internet listen to you when you have advised us not to accept writings which are not peer reviewed?

There is a vast amount of information about Jesus perhaps far more than all the myths of the ancient world.

Writer after writer in antiquity admitted that Jesus was the Son of God and born of a Ghost.

We have far more evidence that Jesus was a Myth than Romulus.

Romulus was the MUNDANE founder of Rome, and is still considered a myth.

You seem to have completely forgotten that hundreds of figures of myth are before and after Jesus, the son of God born of a Ghost.

 

[maximara]

Now, I will grant that the evidence for evolution is much stronger than the evidence for a historical Jesus. But the Creationist -- Mythicist analogy is not based on the strength of the evidence, it is how one side -- the fringe one -- defines "credible evidence" and then claims the other side -- the mainstream academic one -- is too biased to recognise that they aren't using "credible evidence".

The problem is that the "credible evidence" the HJers use is to put it mildly a joke.

I mean you have the seven letters of Paul who is rambling on about the Jesus in his head telling him things...totally useless regarding any actual person of that name.

The you have the Gospels which are anonymous document that no one even references until c130 CE and are not quoted en mass until c180 and that author makes claims about a 50+ old Jesus being crucified about 42-44 CE.

Then you have the usual suspects of

Josephus Flavius (tampered to the point who knows what if anything he said in the TF and the TF is not referenced until the 4th century and are oldest copy is from the 10th...some six centuries after the tampering is thought to have occurred),

Pliny the Younger (only shows belief in a "Christ"),

Tacitus (the oldest copy of which has been shown to have been tampered with and originally talked of Chrestians which could be reference to splinter of an Egyptian cult dating back to 5th century BCE),

Suetonius (which at best shows Christians in the 1st century and who known what the Chrestus he too briefly references is about),

the Talmud (a 3rd-5th century CE document that puts its Jesus in the 1st century BCE )

and on a really bad day Thallus (a work that supposedly ends with 167th Olympiad (c109 BCE) ...no problem say the apologists lets claim Eusebius screwed up and actually meant 217th Olympiad )

How is anyone supposed to take the HJ side of the argument seriously when this is the quality of the evidence that gets brought out?

It is especially bad when the totally morally and logically bankrupt idea of comparing MJ with Holocaust denial comes up:

There were 3,000 tons of truly contemporary (i.e. between 1938-1945) records presented at the 1945-1946 Nuremberg Trials. The 1958 finding aids (eventually the index to the Holocaust evidence) was 62 volumes--just 4 books shy of the number of books (66) traditionally in the entire Bible! Then between 1958 and 2000 they added another 30 volumes, bringing the total to 92.

To put this in perspective, anyone comparing the existence of Jesus to the Holocaust is essentially claiming:

1 there would have to be 3,000 tons of written records dating from 6 BCE to 36 CE showing Jesus existed
2 the most powerful government of the world (i.e. Rome) collected said evidence no later then 36 CE
3 the evidence was presented no later then 37 CE; AND
4 there was a 62 volume index of this evidence dating no later than 44 CE and a 92 volume index of this evidence dating from no later then 92 CE.

The utter insanity of such a position is clear and shows that the HJers (like Bart Ehrman who does exactly this kind of nonsense) are desperate to cover up the fact their claims have no more merit then those regarding the Bermuda Triangle...otherwise why make such a idiotic comparison in the first place?

 

[eight bits]

Brainache

What is your point? Is this your way of agreeing with me?

What are the odds of that?

Isn't that what this is about?

Not that I am aware of. Bayes Theorem is a fact of mathematics, and as such, plays some part in all applications of probabilistic methods for any purpose. It is not, for example, peculiar to Bayesian methods, nor peculiar to modeling evidentiary inference.

Perhaps it is the coincidence of names. On the other hand, many people manage to grasp that the Pythagorean Theorem has little to say about the effects of cutting a string in half (although it might come in handy when verifying that you have accurately done that).

That Bayesian methods conflict with some "historical method" is advanced here chiefly by two posters, you being one of them. Based on the inaccuracies of both your caricatures of Bayes, I can only wonder how much of the actual historical method you accurately portray.

That being the case, I cannot say whether the actual Bayesian method does or doesn't profoundly conflict with any actual, professional historical method. It may be fair to observe that few historians openly profess familiarity with Bayes, but it is entirely possible to comply with Bayesian norms with intending to, especially qualitative norms.

I can, however, say that Bart Ehrman's profession of certainty about HJ, combined with his ackowledgment of the evidentiary basis of his opinion, cannot easily be reconciled with Bayes. Oddly, I also know that Ehrman has made a "Bayesian" argument for a different historical issue (a correct one, but when he was challenged in debate, he was unable to defend it rigorously).

Taking all of this together, I see no reason to rule out that if Bart Ehrman, or any historian, or anybody, for that matter, took the trouble to find out what was really taught by Bayesian and Bayesian-influenced epistemologists, then they might spontaneously adopt more-or-less compatible views.

However, as long as comments like

... "Your Mother wore army boots", ...

decorate your prose, I see little hope of a productive discussion with you about it.

 

[Belz...]

The problem is that the "credible evidence" the HJers use is to put it mildly a joke.

Indeed. It's the sum total of the evidence they have, however. The question is, what's the conclusion we can derive, in terms of history, from that evidence ? Can we conclude that Jesus was a myth ? Or possible a man ? And, if so, do what degree does that man correspond to the story ? Or do we simply not know, and leave it at that ? And if we take that last one, what does it say about similar historical figures ?

In other words, how would you handle historical research in these cases ?