Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[Craig B]

"Paul" persecuted the Church of God in the 2nd century or later.
The earliest actual recovered Pauline writings are dated to the 2nd century or later.

So it was not simply the forgery that happened in the "second century or later" but the Pauline persecution that happened then. By that time however the conditions noted by Acts or by Paul as having existed during his time had long ceased to obtain. No King Aretas, no governor Gallio, no James and his "myriads" of staunch Law-supporting Jews; no visiting the temple and performing purification rites there, no Peter, no John, no surviving disciples.

So the Pauline persecutions (and presumably the subsequent post conversion events) actually took place, but the historical milieu in which they occurred has been fabricated with superhuman delicacy and subtlety by a nameless gang of forgers who created a phantasmagoric environment to replace the real world of their own day - the reign of Commodus? - which surrounded them.

I would really like to find out who it was that achieved this feat of fabricating these "actual Pauline writings" and how and why they did it.

 

[dejudge]

So it was not simply the forgery that happened in the "second century or later" but the Pauline persecution that happened then. By that time however the conditions noted by Acts or by Paul as having existed during his time had long ceased to obtain. No King Aretas, no governor Gallio, no James and his "myriads" of staunch Law-supporting Jews; no visiting the temple and performing purification rites there, no Peter, no John, no surviving disciples.


So the Pauline persecutions (and presumably the subsequent post conversion events) actually took place, but the historical milieu in which they occurred has been fabricated with superhuman delicacy and subtlety by a nameless gang of forgers who created a phantasmagoric environment to replace the real world of their own day - the reign of Commodus? - which surrounded them.

I would really like to find out who it was that achieved this feat of fabricating these "actual Pauline writings" and how and why they did it.

Your post makes very little sense.
Even if you assume there are authentic Pauline writings then you still have to explain who, why, and when the non-authentic writings were forged or falsely attributed.

You seem to have no idea that are at least 18 books in the NT that are considered forgeries or falsely attributed.

See Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?
Tell us how and why they did it. Name the gang of NT forgers.

Do you know who wrote the "TF"?

Who wrote gLuke?

Who wrote gJohn?

Who wrote gMatthew

Who added the 12 additional verses to the long gMark?

Who wrote the short gMark?

Who wrote Ephesians?

Who wrote 1&2 Timothy?

Who wrote the Epistle to Titus?

Who wrote Colossians?

Who wrote 2 Thessalonians?

Who wrote 2 Peter?

Who wrote 1 Peter?

Who wrote the James Epistle?

Who wrote 1,2&3 Epistles of John?

Who wrote the Epistle of Jude?

Who wrote Revelation?

 

[Brainache]

Your post makes very little sense.

You seem to have no idea that are at least 18 books in the NT that are considered forgeries or falsely attributed.

See Bart Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist?
Tell us how and why they did it. Name the gang of NT forgers.

Do you know who wrote the "TF"?

Who wrote gLuke?

Who wrote gJohn?

Who wrote gMatthew

Who added the 12 additional verses to the long gMark?

Who wrote the short gMark?

Who wrote Ephesians?

Who wrote 1&2 Timothy?

Who wrote the Epistle to Titus?

Who wrote Colossians?

Who wrote 2 Thessalonians?

Who wrote 2 Peter?

Who wrote 1 Peter?

Who wrote the James Epistle?

Who wrote 1,2&3 Epistles of John?

Who wrote the Epistle of Jude.

Who wrote Revelation.

Why do you think it would make any difference if we knew the names?

 

[dejudge]

Why do you think it would make any difference if we knew the names?

Ask Craig B that question.

All I know is that you have NO contemporary evidence for HJ and that even though HJ is taught at Universities there are still multiple failures and multiple irreconcilable version of an HJ.

 

[Craig B]

Ask Craig B that question.

No. You're the one who is saying that the whole of the NT was forged as a hoax by fanatical illiterates in the second century or later. I have asked you for some indication of who they were, and how they managed to achieve their effect of creating an imaginary first century world in their spurious works.

 

[DOC]

All I know is that you have NO contemporary evidence for HJ and that even though HJ is taught at Universities there are still multiple failures and multiple irreconcilable version of an HJ.

What contemporary evidence do have for Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world in his time? We have no signature from him and no body of his.

We also have no signature or body of Alexander the Great who conquered Jerusalem and most of the known world at that time.
__

Also, just the fact that the world's largest religion-- Christianity-- is in existence, can be considered some evidence for a Resurrection because the Christian religion doesn't even make sense without a Resurrection (especially in Roman times when being a Christian could get you tortured and killed).

 

[eight bits]

max

I don't see that the historical Jesuses that are actually promoted here by non-believers are "minimal" human beings.

As I recall, you have at times advocated a "great moments" theory of history, as distinct from a "great men and women" theory. Both mechanisms of change are amply attested. Alexander the Great did not causally acquire his epithet, but other great changes come about because the time is right for them.

Even when we can idenify a hero at the flash point of enormous change, like Rosa Parks, we are entitlesd to ask what else did she do in her life before refusing to yield her seat during a bus ride? Actually, she was an activist in racial-discrimination-reform politics, but few had noticed her, except like-minded activists, not a socially prominent nor especially numerous group in that place and time. She was also not the first person to refuse to yield a seat on public transportation, when required by what passed as law.

This ordinariness of her participation in human life does not make Rosa Parks a "minimal" human being. What offensive BS to call any human being "minimal."

As it happens, Mrs Parks survived the crucial incident, and later became an icon, but not a leading manager, of the movement that ensued. All analogies have their limits. If his execution happened, then Jesus did not survive his grand gesture that helped to launch a movement.

You would seem, then, to be on the hook for the serious possibility that the early persistence and eventual rise of Christianity may be more attrbutable to the times than to the personnel. If so, then Jesus need do nothing except, like Rosa Parks, to energize psychologiclly others nearby with a gesture that, except for when and where it happened, is as routine as human behavior gets.

 

[Craig B]

What contemporary evidence do have for Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world in his time? We have no signature from him and no body of his

We also have no signature or body of Alexander the Great who conquered Jerusalem and most of the known world at that time..

To be fair, we have contemporary evidence for both, in the form of an abundance of coins. Both were rulers who appear on money. And for Alexander we have a contemporary inscription on Chios, and a clay tablet from a temple in Babylon. These guys existed, but many false myths became attached to their names, and they were both deified.

 

[David Mo]

David


No. It was a yes-or-no question, Thank you for answering "yes."

So, to recap:

Your claim is that later people who might have been favorably interested in Jesus' story would think less of him for having been crucified.

This is an imprecise way to say it. Some precisions must be added:

1. I’m speaking about a divine entity, someone that in some way participates of divinity. Stories about soldiers or similar don’t fit exactly to my assert. Despite this, when the Roman soldiers were humiliated by crucifixion or Caudine forks it wasn’t exactly they, but someone higher, Roma, that was symbolically humiliated, because crosses and forks/yokes were humiliating punishments for Roman mentality.
2. I’m speaking about Hellenised and Jewish worlds. I don’t know well the ancient German beliefs to evaluate if Odin was humiliated or not in the story you told. Neither I know well the mythology of Germans to interpret the legends and their implications. The Odin’s self-sacrifice is a too very complex story plenty of symbolic interpretations to be analyzed without a deep knowledge of the German’s myths. It doesn’t seems to have the same dishonourable implications that crucifixion, looked from outside. The story about the crucifixion of prisoners in the extermination fields can't be interpreted with the same criteria than the crucifixion of Jesus. Another time, other minds, other beliefs, other circumstances...
3. I’m speaking about honour cultures; specially about the Roman culture, for we speak of Gentiles and hellenised Jews. In this kind of culture status and honour are the first evaluative criterion from the ruler classes and, obviously, Yahveh, to the Jews, and the Supreme God, to the Hellenised people, were the paramount of the dignity. In this context the death of the Christian Messiah was absolutely discordant.

David

In my earlier post today, I passed over the issue you raised at the bottom of in #4702.


You lost me. This case is different from what? Which case is this case? Hosea 6: 1-2 is an exact match of being raised on the third day. Do you mean "for our sins" in 1 Coritnthians 15? That's the "Suffering Servant" from Isaiah 53 at verse 5:

It is different because he expressly says “according to the Scriptures” in the case of the death and resurrection, but not in the case of the crucifixion. This may suggest that in the first case there is a biblical passage that Paul is mentioning, but not in the second case. In the first case we find this passage, but in the second case there is not.

 

[David Mo]

There are several reasons why I think the above is a mistake.

Firstly, 1 - keep in mind that it is really not relevant what date we have for the oldest extant copy of anyone such as Justyn Martyr using the Septuagint (or any other copy of the OT) to reproduce a passage using the words “pierced” or “dug” or any other such word or sentence. Because what I am suggesting is not that Paul could find any such specific words or sentences actually originally written in the OT.

What I am saying is that Paul believed that the prophecies in the OT meant that a messiah named Jesus, the one and only true messiah, would be crucified by his own people.

Paul did not need to find any such specific written passage in any version of the OT. He simply believed that God had revealed to him that that was indeed what OT messiah prophecy actually meant.

If you back up your belief in the biblical and visionary origins of all the content of Pauline epistles only in the general Paul's assertion and not in an analyse of his texts, I don’t know what we are doing here.

But on the contrary, what Paul’s letters do very clearly say is that he consulted no man about his Jesus beliefs, that his knowledge of Jesus was not of human origin, and that he believed Jesus had died and been raised according to scripture. He believed God had revealed that to him.

Of course, if Paul says this we can’t deny it. Paul’s words are untouchable.

Of course, you can set all the Ancient History dates in the first manuscript known, if you want. You can also suppose that the entire biblical manuscripts were manipulated by the Christians (or Jews or cynics or anyone). Then we can close this forum, the Departments of Ancient History and go home.

If this debate has any sense I think it will be useful to maintain us in the borders of what is reasonable and not adopt a hyperscepticism that, let me say you, is the usual resource of mystics and fideists (remember Bultmann). And deniers of all kind.

My conclusion: the fact that the first mention to unique biblical passage that very confusedly reminds the crucifixion has to be dated about 150, and the fact that Paul never expressly says that he pick up this point from the Scriptures, plainly suggests that Paul believes this because it was a widespread belief between many Christians (if not all) of the second half of First Century. The criterion of difficulty implies that this belief on Crucifixion was at odds with the common religious beliefs of Mediterranean world and that’s why it is likely based on a real fact.

I'm sorry but I don't find any interest in continuing debating with you about this subject on the basis of your hypothetical hypercriticism and no critical analysis of texts.

 

[DOC]

What contemporary evidence do have for Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world in his time? We have no signature from him and no body of his.

We also have no signature or body of Alexander the Great who conquered Jerusalem and most of the known world at that time..

To be fair, we have contemporary evidence for both, in the form of an abundance of coins. Both were rulers who appear on money. And for Alexander we have a contemporary inscription on Chios, and a clay tablet from a temple in Babylon. These guys existed, but many false myths became attached to their names, and they were both deified.

Zeus, the goddess Athena, and the goddess Nike had their pictures on coins also. And I doubt the Romans who occupied Palestine during Jesus' life would allow his picture on a Roman coin.
_____

So Alexander the Great conquers Jerusalem and Palestine and there is no contemporary writings about it.

 

[IanS]

There are several reasons why I think the above is a mistake.

Firstly, 1 - keep in mind that it is really not relevant what date we have for the oldest extant copy of anyone such as Justyn Martyr using the Septuagint (or any other copy of the OT) to reproduce a passage using the words “pierced” or “dug” or any other such word or sentence. Because what I am suggesting is not that Paul could find any such specific words or sentences actually originally written in the OT.

What I am saying is that Paul believed that the prophecies in the OT meant that a messiah named Jesus, the one and only true messiah, would be crucified by his own people.

Paul did not need to find any such specific written passage in any version of the OT. He simply believed that God had revealed to him that that was indeed what OT messiah prophecy actually meant.

2. The fact that the oldest surviving mention of that passage with those words may come from Justin Martyr c.150AD, by no means precludes the copyist writer of our oldest copy of any of Paul’s letters from c.200AD, using any pre-200AD source of those words to include the mention of Jesus being crucified.

That is - although you may wish to say that 150AD is too late for Paul to have known such OT words or sentences in 50-60AD, that is not necessarily relevant because (apart from other quite obvious reasons, see 3 below), we actually do not know precisely what Paul originally wrote c.50-60AD. What we have as the writing of Paul is not from 50-60AD but in fact from c.200AD, i.e. 50 years (and possibly much more) after that passage in Justyn Martyr.

3. If by c.150AD Justyn Martyr was supposed to have taken that passage from existing copies of the Septuagint or from any of the other Greek translations of the time, then clearly the passage must have already existed in those written Greek translations from a date prior to 150AD.

And afaik, the Septuagint and half a dozen or more similar Greek translations of the OT supposedly date back not to 150AD and the time of Justyn Martyr, but actually back to 300BC anyway! So if any of those Greek translations had anything at all like the “pierced” passage in Justyn Martyr, then obviously Jews in that region would have known that version of the passage from centuries before Paul was even born!

If you back up your belief in the biblical and visionary origins of all the content of Pauline epistles only in the general Paul's assertion and not in an analyse of his texts, I don’t know what we are doing here.

Well you don’t say what you mean by “analysis of his texts”. What do you mean by that, and what do you think is discoverable in Paul’s words that is different from what his words actually say?

I’m simply pointing out what his words actually say. They say that he got his information “from no man”, “not of any human origin”, and “according to scripture”, through his understanding from God because “God was pleased to reveal his son in me”. That’s what his letters actually say about where he obtained his understanding that Jesus was the messiah.

What you want to do is not to read what Paul actually says, but instead you want to invent things that Paul’s letters do not say at all!

You are trying to claim that because he met Cephas, John, James, Barnabus, that means those people must have told Paul all about Jesus and about his execution … as if you somehow knew that any of those people had definitely known and witnessed Jesus, even though there is no evidence that any of those people had ever known Jesus, no evidence that Paul ever says that any of those people ever told him a single word about Jesus, and even though afaik none of those people ever said they had told Paul anything at all about them witnessing Jesus.

But on the contrary, what Paul’s letters do very clearly say is that he consulted no man about his Jesus beliefs, that his knowledge of Jesus was not of human origin, and that he believed Jesus had died and been raised according to scripture. He believed God had revealed that to him.

Of course, if Paul says this we can’t deny it. Paul’s words are untouchable.
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I'm sorry but I don't find any interest in continuing debating with you about this subject on the basis of your hypothetical hypercriticism and no critical analysis of texts.

I’m not saying Paul’s words are “untouchable”. On the contrary, I expect that what is written as Paul’s letters (whoever wrote those, and I suspect it was not Paul himself, if indeed Paul ever lived at all).

I am simply pointing out that if you are going to make claims about what Paul knew about Jesus and make claims about him getting that knowledge from people that he met such as James and Cephas etc., then you certainly must show where Paul ever says that in any of his letters. Or at the very least show that people like James and Cephas wrote to say they had indeed met Jesus and told Paul all about it. But on the contrary, Paul says he got no such information from any human person such as any of those people. And nor do any of those people ever say they had witnessed Jesus or ever told Paul any such thing at all.

So when you say that Paul must have got his Jesus information from meeting people like Cephas, James, John, Barnabus or whoever, then you are really guilty of making things up here.

You making up an un-evidenced story to claim that people like Cephas & James must have met Jesus, and must have told Paul all about it. Even though you have no evidence of any such thing at all. And where on the contrary, in Paul’s letters the author actually says he did not get it from any such individuals, and where none of those individuals ever claimed to have met Jesus or told Paul any such thing.

Stick with the actual evidence please.

The evidence here is that Paul’s letters specifically say he did not get his Jesus beliefs from any of those named people that he ever met.

 

[eight bits]

David

I’m speaking about a divine entity,

Funny, I thought we were discussing Jesus. There is nothing in Paul that portrays Jesus as divine, nor even as an especially noteworthy human being until his death. In Mark, there is extended suspense during Jesus' life whether Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus being a divinity doesn't even come up.

Between Paul and Mark, the crucifixion (or other "staking") is part of the story. Later agents of apotheosis were stuck with it, which is the wrong word, because Jesus' death was entirely worthy of a god on its face, and we know that because Wotan devotees imitated it.

I’m speaking about honour cultures;

No, you're speaking of your fantasies about ancient people being too stupid and gross to appreciate subtlety and depth in their stories. We know what the post-Marcan Gospels say, and we know that they sold like hot cakes with their apotheosis through (literally) excruciating suffering. You know, like Hercules, or is he also too far removed from the culture in question? OK, Julius Caesar, then, descendant of Venus, betrayed and publicly killed by violence, whose released spirit ascends to heaven. (see the last parts of Ovid's Metamorphoses, written within a generation of Paul's conversion.)

The Odin’s self-sacrifice is a too very complex story plenty of symbolic interpretations to be analyzed without a deep knowledge of the German’s myths.

Which, by an amazing coincidence, is just about what Paul said about Jesus' crucifixion, when writing to people unable or unwilling to find out what the Jewish Messiah myths actually said.

It is different because he expressly says “according to the Scriptures” in the case of the death and resurrection, but not in the case of the crucifixion.

Say what? Are you arguing that the formula "it is written" means something different than what "according to the scriptures" means?

Galatians 3: 13 Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree,”

Compare Deuteronomy 21: 22-23 If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and you hang him on a tree, his corpse shall not remain on the tree overnight.l You must bury it the same day; anyone who is hanged is a curse of God.You shall not defile the land which the LORD, your God, is giving you as a heritage.

This may suggest that in the first case there is a biblical passage that Paul is mentioning, but not in the second case.

What are you talking about? I have provided formally matching Jewish scripture references for both cases that had been mentioned earlier, and now for this third case that supposedly didn't exist. By all means, argue about the cogency of Paul's interpretations of them, but the passages are there, with phrasing that matches his.

 

[zugzwang]

IanS wrote:

IOW - not only is it the case that science has never discovered any hint that the supernatural is even possible in any way at all. But more than that, every discovered theory in science, which now includes an explanation of almost everything imaginable, is actually incompatible with claims of the supernatural.

Well, that seems circular to me, since science uses avowedly naturalistic methods.

I think there is often a confusion between method and philosophy here: science studies nature, but does not claim that there is only nature, since that is a philosophical claim. That is the claim made by scientific realism.

 

[NearlySane]

IanS wrote:



Well, that seems circular to me, since science uses avowedly naturalistic methods.

I think there is often a confusion between method and philosophy here: science studies nature, but does not claim that there is only nature, since that is a philosophical claim. That is the claim made by scientific realism.

Agree - to investigate supernatural claims , one would need a 'supernaturalistic' methodology. It should be noted that the lack of such a methodology precludes those who believe in the supernatural claiming anything from what is seen as evidence in the scientific sense which deals with naturalistic probabilities. Any claims that vanishingly unlikely events are supernatural become meaningless as due to the lack of an appropriate methodology, probability is a naturalistic term.

 

[Belz...]

Belief in the supernatural short circuits any actually explanation of the world as you can just say "a wizard did it". That is why science tries to avoid invoking the supernatural when perfectly mundane explanations are available.

The problem with much of the HJ theory is people try to prove too much--from trying to make Matthew and Luke agree, to saying the 3 hours of darkness was an actual event, to Jesus actually rose from the dead. Even if they use mundane explanations you still wind up with ad hoc theories--theories as untestable as anything out of the MJ camp.

This is why the minimal Jesus theory IMHO comes off as a last desperate attempt to salvage something out of the mess--make Jesus so minor no one of his time noticed him and have Paul and his followers via visions create an elaborate mythology around the man.

And Maximara joins the bandwagon of posters accusing each other of being closet Christians. Tell me: who here has proposed any explanation that includes the supernatural ?

 

[Craig B]

... The evidence here is that Paul’s letters specifically say he did not get his Jesus beliefs from any of those named people that he ever met.

The evidence here is that Paul specifically says he got his message from God. Here is some of it.

2 Cor 12:1 I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. 2 I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. 3 And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows— 4 was caught up to paradise and heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell.

Now, you are telling us we have to believe that stuff, on the sources of Paul's information about Jesus. But we can't take the rational view that he almost certainly learned things from the individuals with whom he was in contact in Jerusalem, Antioch and elsewhere.

You have mentioned the standards of evidence required by a court. Imagine a defence lawyer:

My client was in repeated contact with persons X and Y, including year long joint enterprises, but he never obtained any information from them. He obtained it by being hoisted into the third heaven and hearing inexpressible things from supernatural beings. How do we know that? Because he has told us so, and who could argue with him on this point?

 

[zugzwang]

And Maximara joins the bandwagon of posters accusing each other of being closet Christians. Tell me: who here has proposed any explanation that includes the supernatural ?

Yes, I'm curious as to which HJ people have argued that Jesus rose from the dead? No historian would say that, since (as outlined above), history is a naturalistic discipline, and ignores the supernatural, like science.

I can't think of a serious historian who argues for the resurrection - they just leave it on one side, since it can't be proved or disproved.

Well, correction, historians might certainly discuss the idea of resurrection, and its possible ancestry in Jewish and Greek thought, but that is different from the actual fact of resurrection, which is not within the purview of historical studies.

 

[eight bits]

Craig

The evidence here is that Paul specifically says he got his message from God.

No, the evidence is that he says that he got some portion of his message from God, and as your own quoted matter immediately implies, some of what he got from visions he did not preach (because the expereinced content was inexpressible - a common enough report from religious visionaries - and in any case, he was not allowed to tell some of it.)

The other poster's amusing anecdotes from his student days at the prestigious Rumpole of the Bailey School of Law are not the problem here. Paul's testimony is being misstated, plain and simple.

 

[IanS]

IanS wrote:



Well, that seems circular to me, since science uses avowedly naturalistic methods.

I think there is often a confusion between method and philosophy here: science studies nature, but does not claim that there is only nature, since that is a philosophical claim. That is the claim made by scientific realism.

Well we were not talking about "science" as a concept or subject heading. We were talking about what particular scientists say and think.

And I am telling you that in my quite extensive experience of 20 years inside research physics and theoretical/mathematical physics, except for the quite specific and actually quite rare reasons that I mentioned above, genuine high-level researchers in core fundamental science do not believe in the supernatural ... i.e. to use your word "reject" ; they certainly do "reject" claims of the supernatural (inc. all religious claims of that sort).