Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[IanS]

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.

Well this is all now way off topic here, so I'm not intending to continue this further except to point out why you are certainly wrong in the above - look at the highlight of what you say ... you are not actually talking about any supernatural event at all ... you are only talking about humans making claims of knowing anything supernatural.

All you have is what any individual offers as a claim of something happening.

And what you can certainly do with science is to investigate the nature of the person's claim. You can quite easily test whatever evidence or reasoning they offer in support of their claim. The "claim" is not supernatural ... it's the thing that is claimed to be happening which is said to be supernatural ... but before you ever need to try testing for the so-called "supernatural event", you test the veracity of the "claim" itself and the veracity of the individual making the claim.

IOW - all that you have is a claim being made by an ordinary non-supernatural human being. And you can certainly test the likely truth of any spoken claims that people make.

It would be a different matter if the claimant actually produced an event that appeared to be supernatural. But despite vast numbers of people throughout history claiming to describe and show all manner of “supernatural” or “magical” events, whenever those events have ever been available to be investigated, it has always turned out that all such events were/are in fact entirely non-supernatural.

 

[Brainache]

Well this is all now way off topic here, so I'm not intending to continue this further except to point out why you are certainly wrong in the above - look at the highlight of what you say ... you are not actually talking about any supernatural event at all ... you are only talking about humans making claims of knowing anything supernatural.

All you have is what any individual offers as a claim of something happening.

And what you can certainly do with science is to investigate the nature of the person's claim. You can quite easily test whatever evidence or reasoning they offer in support of their claim. The "claim" is not supernatural ... it's the thing that is claimed to be happening which is said to be supernatural ... but before you ever need to try testing for the so-called "supernatural event", you test the veracity of the "claim" itself and the veracity of the individual making the claim.

IOW - all that you have is a claim being made by an ordinary non-supernatural human being. And you can certainly test the likely truth of any spoken claims that people make.

It would be a different matter if the claimant actually produced an event that appeared to be supernatural. But despite vast numbers of people throughout history claiming to describe and show all manner of “supernatural” or “magical” events, whenever those events have ever been available to be investigated, it has always turned out that all such events were/are in fact entirely non-supernatural.

What I am trying to figure out is what is supernatural about a Jewish Preacher in 1st Century Palestine?

Nothing magical about preaching, or pissing off the Romans enough to get crucified.

What supernatural claim do you think is being made by people in favour of a HJ?

 

[NearlySane]

Well this is all now way off topic here, so I'm not intending to continue this further except to point out why you are certainly wrong in the above - look at the highlight of what you say ... you are not actually talking about any supernatural event at all ... you are only talking about humans making claims of knowing anything supernatural.

All you have is what any individual offers as a claim of something happening.

And what you can certainly do with science is to investigate the nature of the person's claim. You can quite easily test whatever evidence or reasoning they offer in support of their claim. The "claim" is not supernatural ... it's the thing that is claimed to be happening which is said to be supernatural ... but before you ever need to try testing for the so-called "supernatural event", you test the veracity of the "claim" itself and the veracity of the individual making the claim.

IOW - all that you have is a claim being made by an ordinary non-supernatural human being. And you can certainly test the likely truth of any spoken claims that people make.

It would be a different matter if the claimant actually produced an event that appeared to be supernatural. But despite vast numbers of people throughout history claiming to describe and show all manner of “supernatural” or “magical” events, whenever those events have ever been available to be investigated, it has always turned out that all such events were/are in fact entirely non-supernatural.

I can understand why you are stuggling with the concepts here but there is no methodology you can use to establish cause in this sense. Scientific investigation works on the basis of an assumption of naturalism. All events might be 'caused' by something supernatural though I think once you posit the supernatural, it invalidates all use of the idea of cause and effect, since they are naturalist concepts.


You can certainly disprove claims that something has happened but you cannot actually prove causes, they are simply based on probability. The mistake you are making is that you allow those positing the supernatural, a seat at a table where they don't belong. Further if there is then any situation which cannot be explained fully (and most things can't - not because they are supernatural but because of the complexity of variables), then by your reductionist stance, those touting the supernatural will calim that uncertainty as support for them, when corectly it isn't anything to do with them.

 

[zugzwang]

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).

No, you were talking about particular scientists; I am talking about science as a set of methods which are naturalistic. Of course, individuals can and do reject the idea of the supernatural, but that is a philosophical claim, not a scientific one. Otherwise, you are in a perfect circle - that as a naturalistic set of disciplines, the sciences do not consider the supernatural - well, yes. But to go from 'science studies nature' to 'there is only nature' is not a scientific step but a philosophical one.

 

[IanS]

I can understand why you are stuggling with the concepts here but there is no methodology you can use to establish cause in this sense. Scientific investigation works on the basis of an assumption of naturalism. All events might be 'caused' by something supernatural though I think once you posit the supernatural, it invalidates all use of the idea of cause and effect, since they are naturalist concepts.


You can certainly disprove claims that something has happened but you cannot actually prove causes, they are simply based on probability. The mistake you are making is that you allow those positing the supernatural, a seat at a table where they don't belong. Further if there is then any situation which cannot be explained fully (and most things can't - not because they are supernatural but because of the complexity of variables), then by your reductionist stance, those touting the supernatural will calim that uncertainty as support for them, when corectly it isn't anything to do with them.

You are now totally off topic for this thread. And this question of whether science can investigate claims that people make (about anything) has been discussed many times here in other threads.

If you want to discuss this further then you need to start another thread (though I may be just as disinterested as I have been in the other threads where it always turned out to be a philosophical discussion about semantics) and see who wants discuss this same question yet again for the umpteenth time. But here, any further discussion is a completely off-topic derail of the actual thread.

 

[Belz...]

What I am trying to figure out is what is supernatural about a Jewish Preacher in 1st Century Palestine?

It circles back to the problem of distinction: Jesus was both in the story, therefore a myth because he can't have supernatural attributes in real life.

 

[Belz...]

You are now totally off topic for this thread.

Fascinating.

 

[pakeha]

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).

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

Come, come, DOC.
We've been over this before, after all.
Have you forgotten about the Babylonian Chronicles^WP and their entry treating the capture of Babylon by Alexander the Great?
You can read about it here:
http://www.livius.org/cg-cm/chronicles/bchp-alexander/alexander_01.html

...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.

And this is where bible scholarship and history get confused as well as confusing, isn't it?
Those Dutch Radicals have a lot to answer for!

 

[zugzwang]

You are now totally off topic for this thread. And this question of whether science can investigate claims that people make (about anything) has been discussed many times here in other threads.

If you want to discuss this further then you need to start another thread (though I may be just as disinterested as I have been in the other threads where it always turned out to be a philosophical discussion about semantics) and see who wants discuss this same question yet again for the umpteenth time. But here, any further discussion is a completely off-topic derail of the actual thread.

I don't think it is off-topic, since I see you as trying to scientize history. History is not a scientific discipline, but when you talk about 'reproducible' evidence, it's as if you are treating it as one. Historical method of course looks at physical stuff such as archaeology, but it also studies documents, beliefs, cultural traits. For example, it compares documents, makes inferences from them, and so on, but I think you dismiss this as 'not real evidence'. You are confusing different disciplines.

 

[IanS]

I don't think it is off-topic, since I see you as trying to scientize history. History is not a scientific discipline, but when you talk about 'reproducible' evidence, it's as if you are treating it as one. Historical method of course looks at physical stuff such as archaeology, but it also studies documents, beliefs, cultural traits. For example, it compares documents, makes inferences from them, and so on, but I think you dismiss this as 'not real evidence'. You are confusing different disciplines.

Just very briefly, for the benefit of others here who may think that Zugzwang and NearlySane are correct to imply that I have suggested something astonishing, crazy, or long “disproven” by philosophical-type arguments (or indeed quite often in fact "disproven" by religious arguments) claiming that science has no ability to test claims of the supernatural, note that even the very briefest 5 second (or less!) Google search immediately produces articles such as those linked below, explaining why it is quite wrong to think or insist that science cannot investigate claims of the supernatural -


http://www.naturalism.org/Can Scien...views- Final Author's Copy (Fishman 2007).pdf


http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/can-science-test-the-supernatural-yes/



No doubt anyone could easily find many more articles like those. Though saying any more would, as I said several posts ago, be completely off-topic here and actually a derail of the thread entirely into what is actually a well known and very tired old “chestnut” or “canard” of a philosophical semantics argument that has been played out many times before on this forum.

 

[Brainache]

Just very briefly, for the benefit of others here who may think that Zugzwang and NearlySane are correct to imply that I have suggested something astonishing, crazy, or long “disproven” by philosophical-type arguments (or indeed quite often in fact "disproven" by religious arguments) claiming that science has no ability to test claims of the supernatural, note that even the very briefest 5 second (or less!) Google search immediately produces articles such as those linked below, explaining why it is quite wrong to think or insist that science cannot investigate claims of the supernatural -


http://www.naturalism.org/Can Scien...views- Final Author's Copy (Fishman 2007).pdf


http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/can-science-test-the-supernatural-yes/



No doubt anyone could easily find many more articles like those. Though saying any more would, as I said several posts ago, be completely off-topic here and actually a derail of the thread entirely into what is actually a well known and very tired old “chestnut” or “canard” of a philosophical semantics argument that has been played out many times before on this forum.

So, apart from DOC, who has been arguing for anything supernatural about the HJ?

The answer of course is nobody. Because Historians don't deal with the Supernatural.

But of course IanS would have us believe that they are all just Fundies lying for Jesus. Even the Jewish ones.

Hilarious.

 

[zugzwang]

A supernatural HJ is an oxymoron, isn't it? Of course, nearly all Christians argue that Jesus was human, but in addition, they argue that he was divine. This is quite different from HJ, since as stated above by various people, history is naturalistic.

I suppose there is also the extreme liberal wing of Christianity which rules out divinity, I'm not sure what they're called these days, but anyway, like the Sea of Faith people. Well, actually, they are Christian atheists, e.g. Cupitt et al.

 

[NearlySane]

Just very briefly, for the benefit of others here who may think that Zugzwang and NearlySane are correct to imply that I have suggested something astonishing, crazy, or long “disproven” by philosophical-type arguments (or indeed quite often in fact "disproven" by religious arguments) claiming that science has no ability to test claims of the supernatural, note that even the very briefest 5 second (or less!) Google search immediately produces articles such as those linked below, explaining why it is quite wrong to think or insist that science cannot investigate claims of the supernatural -


http://www.naturalism.org/Can Scien...views- Final Author's Copy (Fishman 2007).pdf


http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/can-science-test-the-supernatural-yes/



No doubt anyone could easily find many more articles like those. Though saying any more would, as I said several posts ago, be completely off-topic here and actually a derail of the thread entirely into what is actually a well known and very tired old “chestnut” or “canard” of a philosophical semantics argument that has been played out many times before on this forum.

At mo point have I implied that you have said anything crazy, long disproven or even remotely astonishing, I've simply agreed with one poster and disagreed with you.
I've also put my case rather than cited a couple of links which are irrelevant to the point being made, or fobbed you off with 'oh we have discussed this many times and it's just semantics'.

I will point out that saying something is just semantics is just semantics but then that would be just semantics.

As stated previoulsy history and science make naturalistic assumptions (and I think that is a good thing) and therefore can only come to naturalist conclusions (Another good thing). The supernatural is meaningless in that context - I would suggest that there is no context we have in which it is meaningful. And therein lies the rub, you appear to think I'm arguing that the supernatural has some validity, but guven that I have made clear, I think it has less validity than you seek to give it, I am forced to see this as a reaction to you being disagreed with. This would tie in with your incorrect characterization that I see anything astonishing in your position.

Now since you are so worried about being on topic, the point of such 'semantics' is that with suprenatural claims in history, I ignore them other than using them to understand the mindset of the writers. They are not historically truth apt, nor in any sense I understand are they truth apt. That said given their prevalence with figures who do appear to have historic validity ( Julius Caesar for example), that they are made does not mean we can make any suppositions about whether the people they are attached to are historic or not.

 

[dejudge]

A supernatural HJ is an oxymoron, isn't it? Of course, nearly all Christians argue that Jesus was human, but in addition, they argue that he was divine. This is quite different from HJ, since as stated above by various people, history is naturalistic.

I suppose there is also the extreme liberal wing of Christianity which rules out divinity, I'm not sure what they're called these days, but anyway, like the Sea of Faith people. Well, actually, they are Christian atheists, e.g. Cupitt et al.

You have exposed the problem with the HJ argument.

There are many Christian Scholars who argue that Jesus existed as described in the NT--the Son of God who was raised from the dead.

Ratzinger, the former bishop of Rome, is a Christian Scholar who preaches and teaches that the Historical Jesus was indeed born of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin.

Ratzinger is listed as one of the 20 most influential Christian Scholar.

http://www.superscholar.org/features/20-most-influential-christian-scholars/


The HJ argument is an irreconcilable argument of confusion and contradiction because many of the so-called Christian Scholars who argue for the existence of an Historical Jesus are actually arguing for the existence of a supernatural resurrected Jesus.

Essentially, the HJ argument is fuelled by Bible Believers who are actually attempting to historicize a Mythological Son of God--God Incarnate.

There may be thousands of Christian Scholars who hold the same view as Ratzinger in Universities and the Church.

It must be noted that the QUEST for an HJ was initiated by Bible Believers.

No HJ has ever been found as is evident because there was never any evidence from the start.

 

[IanS]

A supernatural HJ is an oxymoron, isn't it? Of course, nearly all Christians argue that Jesus was human, but in addition, they argue that he was divine. This is quite different from HJ, since as stated above by various people, history is naturalistic.

I suppose there is also the extreme liberal wing of Christianity which rules out divinity, I'm not sure what they're called these days, but anyway, like the Sea of Faith people. Well, actually, they are Christian atheists, e.g. Cupitt et al.

Sure (re most of the above). I was just responding to your post quoted below where you appear to say that scientists “neither accept or reject supernatural claims". Because I don't want comments like that to slip under the radar unnoticed, as if nobody disagreed with that sort of statement.

Historians neither accept nor reject supernatural claims, rather like science.

But without going over the off-topic part of that issue again - the problem with anyone talking about a HJ rather than the supernatural figure described in the bible, is (and this has been pointed out many times before without anyone here providing any adequate answer, explanation or justification for the proposed HJ), that the idea of a HJ appears to be nothing more than that, i.e. just an idea invented in relatively recent times (e.g., say, circa.1700-1900), apparently only as a response after modern science increasingly began to show that the supernatural claims which fill the biblical description of Jesus, are almost certainly untrue (i.e., physically impossible) ...

... only then, for that reason (apparently) was 1700+ years of religious insistence on a miraculous Jesus, changed to propose the idea of a "historical" Jesus, apparently created from the biblical Jesus (which is the only Jesus anyone ever actually claimed to know anything about at the time) by simply deleting all the numerous miracle claims and other fantastic parts of the story which Christians, theologians and bible scholars could no longer support without looking increasingly isolated as part of a lunatic fringe.

But that must immediately raise two questions that are in vital need of credible answers from anyone who claims to believe in a HJ. Namely -

1. What was the justification for simply deleting all the various descriptions of Jesus that were originally claimed, but which by about 1700-1900 had been shown to be untrue fiction? On what basis were all those numerous parts of the Jesus simply removed?

2. Where did this hypothetical HJ person come from if not from the bible? The invented idea of a HJ is simply the same biblical non-HJ, but with all the apparently impossible fictional parts discarded. But who ever claimed to witness any HJ? Nobody! The only people who ever claimed at the actual time to know about Jesus all swore total certainty to a demonstrably supernatural NON-HJ ... that is the only Jesus ever described by anyone of the time, i.e. very much a NON-HJ.

 

[IanS]

At mo point have I implied that you have said anything crazy, long disproven or even remotely astonishing, I've simply agreed with one poster and disagreed with you.
I've also put my case rather than cited a couple of links which are irrelevant to the point being made, or fobbed you off with 'oh we have discussed this many times and it's just semantics'.

I will point out that saying something is just semantics is just semantics but then that would be just semantics.

As stated previoulsy history and science make naturalistic assumptions (and I think that is a good thing) and therefore can only come to naturalist conclusions (Another good thing). The supernatural is meaningless in that context - I would suggest that there is no context we have in which it is meaningful. And therein lies the rub, you appear to think I'm arguing that the supernatural has some validity, but guven that I have made clear, I think it has less validity than you seek to give it, I am forced to see this as a reaction to you being disagreed with. This would tie in with your incorrect characterization that I see anything astonishing in your position.

Now since you are so worried about being on topic, the point of such 'semantics' is that with suprenatural claims in history, I ignore them other than using them to understand the mindset of the writers. They are not historically truth apt, nor in any sense I understand are they truth apt. That said given their prevalence with figures who do appear to have historic validity ( Julius Caesar for example), that they are made does not mean we can make any suppositions about whether the people they are attached to are historic or not.

In that case we appear not to be actually disagreeing about anything except a load of off-topic pseudo-philosophical semantic mumbo-jumbo.

So perhaps we can now get back to the issue of why, after all these hundreds of pages, still nobody has produced any reliable or credible evidence of anyone ever knowing a living human Jesus.

 

[Belz...]

You have exposed the problem with the HJ argument.

Repeating this every other post doesn't make it more convincing.

Ratzinger, the former bishop of Rome, is a Christian Scholar who preaches and teaches that the Historical Jesus was indeed born of a Holy Ghost and a Virgin.

And he represents historians how ?

 

[dejudge]

It is most fascinating that many posters here have no idea that Science is actually being used to reconstruct Ancient History.

It would appear that many believe that the past is only reconstructed by manuscripts.

They do not realize the Earth itself contains the history of all mankind and is being revealed through Science.

Through Science we have discarded the Creation story in Genesis.

Science have helped to show that the Dead Sea Scrolls [the DSS] were dated reasonably accurate by Paleographers.

http://dwb4.unl.edu/Chem/CHEM869Z/C...edu/physics/newsletter/summer95/deadsea2.html

Researchers in the Arizona Accelerator Mass Spectrometer (AMS) Laboratory at the University of Arizona have carbon-14 dated samples of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their results are consistent with ages determined by paleographic research.

The DSS show No mention of Jesus of Nazareth, no mention of a Jesus cult of Christians, No character called Paul, no reference to a new religion where the Jews worshiped a man as a God, no reference to Jesus as the Christ and no arguments against a new religion started by Jesus of Nazareth.

The use of C-14 dating with Paleography has exposed that there is no contemporary evidence at all to support the HJ proposal.

The HJ proposal originated with Bible Believers and has been subjected to multiple failures since its inception in the 18th century.

All we have after hundreds of years of the QUEST are multiple irreconcilable proposals which is PROOF the proposals are baseless or based on imagination--not established evidence.

Thanks to Science--the HJ argument is dead.

 

[pakeha]

...Where did this hypothetical HJ person come from if not from the bible? The invented idea of a HJ is simply the same biblical non-HJ, but with all the apparently impossible fictional parts discarded. But who ever claimed to witness any HJ? Nobody! The only people who ever claimed at the actual time to know about Jesus all swore total certainty to a demonstrably supernatural NON-HJ ... that is the only Jesus ever described by anyone of the time, i.e. very much a NON-HJ.

Would Paul count, IanS?

 

[IanS]

2. Where did this hypothetical HJ person come from if not from the bible? The invented idea of a HJ is simply the same biblical non-HJ, but with all the apparently impossible fictional parts discarded. But who ever claimed to witness any HJ? Nobody! The only people who ever claimed at the actual time to know about Jesus all swore total certainty to a demonstrably supernatural NON-HJ ... that is the only Jesus ever described by anyone of the time, i.e. very much a NON-HJ.

Would Paul count, IanS?

Hi pakeha - you mean would Paul count as someone who witnessed a HJ? Answer, no he would not.

Paul only claimed to have seen a vision of a supernatural Jesus (a Jesus figure who returns to life from three days of being dead).

I cant’ think of anyone at that time (or at any time) who ever wrote to credibly claim they had ever met a living Jesus, can you?