Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[dejudge]

Oh yes, because we just have to read what the text says. I take it these are all excerpts from the Ancient book of "What Really Happened"...?

You have demonstrated that you don't know what evidence is.

You MUST read the evidence from antiquity.

The EVIDENCE is found in the texts of antiquity.

Your argument is hopelessly void of logic.

 

[Brainache]

You have demonstrated that you don't know what evidence is.

You MUST read the evidence from antiquity.

The EVIDENCE is found in the texts of antiquity.

Your argument is hopelessly void of logic.

Yes, but that is all you do. You don't apply any analysis to the text, just accept it at face value: that is the wrong way to study History.

You act as if there is indeed a big book somewhere of "Everything that happened" and all Historians have to do is read from it to reach conclusions about the past.

You are still the best at making Mythers look silly, no one else in the world even comes close...

Keep up the good work dejudge! The HJ team are all behind you...

 

[Craig B]

A bit less than sure. There is no lamb in the Greek, just either the event, its commemoration, or both, pascha or Passover (Pasch). And what happened to Passover? etythe... a word which appears nowhere else in the NT; assuming that's a mistake of tau for theta, then it could mean "celebrated" or "commemorated," since it is the event that is being discussed, or indeed sacrified in its root meaning. Regardless, no animals were injured in constructing this figure of speech.

There's no "lamb" in the AV either, but I am pretty certain that the sacrifice of the lamb is intended. For the various translations see http://www.biblestudytools.com/1-corinthians/5-7-compare.html. There is a similar ambiguity of expression as regards God's advice to Cain in the matter of sacrifices. Genesis 4:7.

(NIV) If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
(YLT) Is there not, if thou dost well, acceptance? and if thou dost not well, at the opening a sin-offering is crouching, and unto thee its desire, and thou rulest over it.

The YLT makes sense, unlike The New International Readers Version which is extremely effusive, or imaginative.

(NIRV) Do what is right. Then you will be accepted. If you don't do what is right, sin is waiting at your door to grab you. It longs to have you. But you must rule over it.

But see Strong's Concordance: חֲטָאָה chataah: sin, sin offering http://biblehub.com/hebrew/2401.htm. Given the context, the meaning is clear: Your offering of vegetables is unacceptable. Offer instead any sheep or goat that is around, crouching at your door. I have granted you rule over them. "Passover" has of course a similar double significance.

The name "Pesach" ... mean(s) to pass through, to pass over, to exempt or to spare ... "Pesach" is also the name of the sacrificial offering (a lamb) that was made in the Temple on this holiday.

http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm.

So I respectfully disagree. The passage mentions two things, the bread (his Corinthian congregation) and the lamb (Jesus), contra your reading

It is the rite as a whole which is the sacrifice, not the death of the lambs. The rite includes several days of unleavened bread, eaten where leavened bread has been expelled.

For Paul mentions the bread separately as symbolising the Corinthian believers; therefore the reference to the Passover must be to the other component of the event, by contrast, the slain lamb. He has teased your "rite as a whole" into a "bread" part, and (as it must therefore be) a "lamb" part. The Hebrew usage of the word, presumably rendered by Paul directly into Greek, permits this interpretation (if I have not been betrayed by the concordances which my ignorance of these ancient languages compels me to consult) and the images evoked by Paul require it, or so it seems to me.

 

[dejudge]

Yes, but that is all you do. You don't apply any analysis to the text, just accept it at face value: that is the wrong way to study History.

You act as if there is indeed a big book somewhere of "Everything that happened" and all Historians have to do is read from it to reach conclusions about the past.

You are still the best at making Mythers look silly, no one else in the world even comes close...

Keep up the good work dejudge! The HJ team are all behind you...

Your argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE Evidence.

You can't even convince yourself that there was an HJ in the recent poll.

Richard Carrier studied History at a University and argues that Jesus was a figure of Mythology.

Robert Eisenman studied History at University and admitted that NO-ONE has EVER solved the HJ question.

Robert Van Voorst, a Christian Scholar, studied at College and preached that the Historical Jesus was the Son of God, and was raised from the dead.


Please, just go and find out what University Historians and Scholars say about Jesus because you don't know what you are talking about.

You don't even know that Historians and Scholars use the existing texts in manuscripts with stories of Jesus to form an opinion.

Jesus of the NT was a Stupid Crazy Ghost story propagated by ILLITERATES and LIARS.

Eusebius' Against Hierocles

And this point is also worth noticing, that whereas the tales of Jesus have been vamped up by Peter and Paul and a few others of the kind,--men who were liars and devoid of education and wizards...

The NT is a pack of lies, a pack of Myth and a pack of forgeries or false attribution.

Why are you using a pack of forgeries and CRAZY lies as a source of history for your Jesus?

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.

 

[Brainache]

Your argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE Evidence.

You can't even convince yourself that there was an HJ in the recent poll.

Richard Carrier studied History at a University and argues that Jesus was a figure of Mythology.

Robert Eisenman studied History at University and admitted that NO-ONE has EVER solved the HJ question.

Robert Van Voorst, a Christian Scholar, studied at College and preached that the Historical Jesus was the Son of God, and was raised from the dead.


Please, just go and find out what University Historians and Scholars say about Jesus because you don't know what you are talking about.

You don't even know that Historians and Scholars use the existing texts in manuscripts with stories of Jesus to form an opinion.

Jesus of the NT was a Stupid Crazy Ghost story propagated by ILLITERATES and LIARS.

Eusebius' Against Hierocles

The NT is a pack of lies, a pack of Myth and a pack of forgeries or false attribution.

Why are you using a pack of forgeries and CRAZY lies as a source of history for your Jesus?

1 Corinthians 15:45 KJV

Wow, these posts of yours are getting even less coherent. How do you manage that?

Keep up the good work exposing those Mythers for the morons they are dejudge. You're a champion!

 

[dejudge]

..Please, just go and find out what University Historians and Scholars say about Jesus because you don't know what you are talking about.

You don't even know that Historians and Scholars use the existing texts in manuscripts with stories of Jesus to form an opinion.

Jesus of the NT was a Stupid Crazy Ghost story propagated by ILLITERATES and LIARS.

Wow, these posts of yours are getting even less coherent. How do you manage that?

Keep up the good work exposing those Mythers for the morons they are dejudge. You're a champion!

You don't know what you are talking about. You don't know what evidence is.

You know names of Universities.

Richard Carrier an Historian who studied at a University admitted that Bart Ehrman's "Did Jesus Exist?" is void of logic and facts.

Robert Eisenman, an Historian who studied at a University admitted NO-ONE has EVER solved the HJ question.

Hierocles, a writer of antiquity, claimed the Jesus story is a product of Liars, the uneducated and wizards.

1. Eusebius' Against Hierocles

---And this point is also worth noticing, that whereas the tales of Jesus have been vamped up by Peter and Paul and a few others of the kind,--men who were liars and devoid of education and wizards...

Justin Martyr, a writer of antiquity, claimed the Jesus story was propagated ILLITERATES.

2. Justin's First Apology

For from Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God...

In statements attributed to Macarius Magnes, it is admitted that Paul was a Liar.


3. Macarius Magnes' "Apocritus"

We conclude then that he is a liar and manifestly brought up in an atmosphere of lying.

The Jesus story is a stupid Crazy Pack of Lies propagated by Illiterates and Liars in antiquity.

 

[maximara]

Yes, but that is all you do. You don't apply any analysis to the text, just accept it at face value: that is the wrong way to study History.

You act as if there is indeed a big book somewhere of "Everything that happened" and all Historians have to do is read from it to reach conclusions about the past.

You are still the best at making Mythers look silly, no one else in the world even comes close...

As I said before just because there is something like Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn doesn't mean there wasn't a real Davy Crockett.

That said the evidence for Jesus not being anything more then the 1st century equivalent of John Frum is basically nil:

1) Paul is vague on any historical details to the point of uselessness.

2) No part of a Gospel appears until c130 and even then it is vague one sentence reference that could have been woven into the Gospels by 180 when we have an author going on a quote mine trip.

3) All early third part references to Jesus are John Frumish like in nature until you get to c170 with Celsus and him we only know though a rebuttal written some 70 years later so we don't know what was actually in that work or how good (or bad) it really was.

4) Even when stripped of all the supernatural stuff the Gospel story is still talking historical nonsense with people and institutions behaving wildly out of character from what we know them to be.

 

[Belz...]

Your argument is void of logic, facts and pre 70 CE Evidence.

Considering that you start every post with such an utterance, your credibility when stating this is zero.

You can't even convince yourself that there was an HJ in the recent poll.

Desperate ?

Robert Eisenman, an Historian who studied at a University admitted NO-ONE has EVER solved the HJ question.

And yet YOU claim to have solved it.

 

[eight bits]

Craig

There's no "lamb" in the AV either, but I am pretty certain that the sacrifice of the lamb is intended.

I'm not, for the reasons stated. Chief among them, the lambs aren't sin offerings in connection with Jewish Pasch mythology. Paul's Jewish, he would know this. "John" kept his foreskin, I'd wager. A dead lamb is a dead lamb for John.

For the various translations ...

You may have overheard in a recent exchange with another poster, I am unimpressed with Englsih translations when consensus Greek is available. Many translations of the NT are of the whole anthology, not each individual book. The translators have read John, and it is among the possible reasonable objectives of translation to achieve uniflormity of translation throughout the anthology. For religious works, this might be especailly so, even insisted upon by the customer. Unlike his translators, Paul never read John. He would agree with his successor that Jesus died to redeem sinners, but disagree that that's why lambs die on the day of preparation.

I didn't catch your point on Genesis 4: 7, or its application to Paul. I'm not even sure what "ambiguity" your pointing to, when there is no ambiguity about pascha. It's an annual Jewish festival. People get rid of any leftover bread, which has yeast, and use new bread without yeast, which they continue to do for a while after the big day. If Paul wanted to discuss the holiday dinner's meat course, he could have, but he didn't.

contra your reading

You're entitled to your reading, of course, but I don't share it.

 

[Craig B]

I'm not even sure what "ambiguity" your pointing to, when there is no ambiguity about pascha. It's an annual Jewish festival.

And it is also

... the name of the sacrificial offering (a lamb) that was made in the Temple on this holiday.

according to a Jewish information site http://www.jewfaq.org/holidaya.htm. This is very evidently relevant to the matter under discussion.

You're entitled to your reading, of course, but I don't share it.

And you are entitled not to share it, of course, as best pleases you.

 

[Craig B]

Dup post.

 

[Brainache]

As I said before just because there is something like Davy Crockett and the Frozen Dawn doesn't mean there wasn't a real Davy Crockett.

That said the evidence for Jesus not being anything more then the 1st century equivalent of John Frum is basically nil:

1) Paul is vague on any historical details to the point of uselessness.

2) No part of a Gospel appears until c130 and even then it is vague one sentence reference that could have been woven into the Gospels by 180 when we have an author going on a quote mine trip.

3) All early third part references to Jesus are John Frumish like in nature until you get to c170 with Celsus and him we only know though a rebuttal written some 70 years later so we don't know what was actually in that work or how good (or bad) it really was.

4) Even when stripped of all the supernatural stuff the Gospel story is still talking historical nonsense with people and institutions behaving wildly out of character from what we know them to be.

So then, what in your opinion is the most plausible answer to the question of where the stories and teachings etc came from?

We know the Gospels weren't written by the Disciples or even Jews, so I don't expect them to get all the details right.

You are almost doing what dejudge is, by reading the stories at face value and dismissing the idea that they contain anything useful because they aren't the same as modern History Books.

If you are right, then why do none of the Professors of Ancient History in any University in the world agree with you?

Find me one who does.

 

[eight bits]

Craig

My first thought was that I could have sworn Paul wrote that in Greek. Live and learn. Anyway, "Jewfaq" is a one woman show, Tracey Rich. And she says,
http://www.jewfaq.org/author.htm

I do not claim to be a rabbi or an expert on Judaism; I'm just a traditional, observant Jew who has put in a lot of research. I must be doing something right, because one of the rabbis at an "Ask a Rabbi" website routinely copies material from this website! All of the material on this site was created by me, just one individual. There is no corporation or organization behind this site.

It is, of course, completely unthinkable that Tracey might have confused korban pesach with pesach. And, of course, Paul might have meant the pasch in Exodus, when there was no Temple sacrifice (no Temple yet, much less the Jewish or Second Temple), but there was the getting rid of leavened bread (12:15).

Now, John, he meant the korban pesach, in the Second Temple observance. If only he could have gotten the sin offering part to drop, eh?

 

[Brainache]

Craig

My first thought was that I could have sworn Paul wrote that in Greek. Live and learn. Anyway, "Jewfaq" is a one woman show, Tracey Rich. And she says,
http://www.jewfaq.org/author.htm

It is, of course, completely unthinkable that Tracey might have confused korban pesach with pesach. And, of course, Paul might have meant the pasch in Exodus, when there was no Temple sacrifice (no Temple yet, much less the Jewish or Second Temple), but there was the getting rid of leavened bread (12:15).

Now, John, he meant the korban pesach, in the Second Temple observance. If only he could have gotten the sin offering part to drop, eh?

First, I'd like to thank you for keeping a spark of interest in this thread.

I'm learning a lot from your posts. Thank you.

If I understand what you are saying here, Paul's description of the death of Jesus (such as it is), could be interpreted to apply to a victim of a mass slaughter whose corpse was later displayed on a gibbet, rather than the traditional NT story of a trial and crucifixion. Is that what you mean?

Could there have been someone from Galilee or there abouts who came under the attention of Pontius Pilate who fits this description?

I'm thinking of The Taheb
http://www.biblestudytools.com/history/flavius-josephus/antiquities-jews/book-18/chapter-4.html

. BUT the nation of the Samaritans did not escape without tumults. The man who excited them to it was one who thought lying a thing of little consequence, and who contrived every thing so that the multitude might be pleased; so he bid them to get together upon Mount Gerizzim, which is by them looked upon as the most holy of all mountains, and assured them, that when they were come thither, he would show them those sacred vessels which were laid under that place, because Moses put them there.

So they came thither armed, and thought the discourse of the man probable; and as they abode at a certain village, which was called Tirathaba, they got the rest together to them, and desired to go up the mountain in a great multitude together; but Pilate prevented their going up, by seizing upon file roads with a great band of horsemen and foot-men, who fell upon those that were gotten together in the village; and when it came to an action, some of them they slew, and others of them they put to flight, and took a great many alive, the principal of which, and also the most potent of those that fled away, Pilate ordered to be slain.
...

Could your translation fit someone like him?

 

[DOC]

...Hierocles, a writer of antiquity, claimed the Jesus story is a product of Liars, the uneducated and wizards.

1. Eusebius' Against Hierocles

<snip>

In statements attributed to Macarius Magnes, it is admitted that Paul was a Liar.

3. Macarius Magnes' "Apocritus"


The Jesus story is a stupid Crazy Pack of Lies propagated by Illiterates and Liars in antiquity.

It is not logical for you and those other writers to call these people Liars:

Reason: you don't constantly risk your life for something you know is a lie. And these people did constantly risk their lives in the brutal Roman Empire and many paid the ultimate price:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs#According_to_Acts_of_the_Apostles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1st-century_Christian_martyrs

Whatever you want to call these people, it is not logical to call them liars.

 

[Brainache]

It is not logical for you and those other writers to call these people Liars:

Reason: you don't constantly risk your life for something you know is a lie. And these people did constantly risk their lives in the brutal Roman Empire and many paid the ultimate price:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs#According_to_Acts_of_the_Apostles


Whatever you want to say about these people they were certainly not liars.

It's not often that I get a chance to say this: I agree with DOC.

I also think you can call Paul many things, but "uneducated" isn't one of them.

For the time and place he appears to have been extremely well educated in Rhetoric and Jewish Scripture, at the very least.

 

[Craig B]

Craig

My first thought was that I could have sworn Paul wrote that in Greek. Live and learn. Anyway, "Jewfaq" is a one woman show, Tracey Rich. And she says,
http://www.jewfaq.org/author.htm

Tracey's not on her own.

πάσχα, τό (Chaldean פִּסְחָא, Hebrew פֶּסַח, from פָּסַח, to pass over, to pass over by sparing; the Sept. also constantly use the Chaldean form πάσχα, except in 2 Chron. (and Jeremiah 38:8 ()) where it is φασεκ; Josephus has φασκα, Antiquities 5, 1, 4; 14, 2, 1; 17, 9, 13; b. j. 2, 1, 3), an indeclinable noun (Winers Grammar, § 10, 2); properly, a passing over;
1. the paschal sacrifice (which was accustomed to be offered for the people's deliverance of old from Egypt), or
2. the paschal lamb, i. e. the lamb which the Israelites were accustomed to slay and eat on the fourteenth day of the month Nisan ...

http://biblehub.com/greek/3957.htm

There's your Greek, too.

 

[maximara]

Since this thread has gone way off the rails perhaps it should be mentioned (again) that Carrier compares the quality of the book in question to the Christ myth book The Jesus Mysteries by Freke & Gandy which he states "will disease your mind with rampant unsourced falsehoods and completely miseducate you about the ancient world and ancient religion."

"Like the worst of mythicist literature, you will come away after reading it with more false information in your head than true, and that makes my job as a historian harder, because now I have to fix everything he screwed up."

Carrier even provides links to other reviewers who lamblasted the book on FACTUAL and ACCURACY grounds:

Tom Verenna Preliminary Overview of Bart Ehrman’s ‘Did Jesus Exist?’

Neil Godfrey Bart Ehrman and another unprofessional blow at mythicism

Both these blogs show Ehrman doing the type of research we would except out of Holding...ie total garbage.

The Ehrman Trashtalks Mythicism and McGrath on the Amazing Infallible Ehrman articles by Carrier show just how bad Ehrman's work is and the desperation of those that like it will go to salvage what is in essence Bermuda Triangle Mystery level of research.

 

[maximara]

So then, what in your opinion is the most plausible answer to the question of where the stories and teachings etc came from?

We know the Gospels weren't written by the Disciples or even Jews, so I don't expect them to get all the details right.

You are almost doing what dejudge is, by reading the stories at face value and dismissing the idea that they contain anything useful because they aren't the same as modern History Books.

No I am applying how the Robin Hood legend better fits actual historical events with a 200 year gap and evidence of being a composite character then we have with Jesus with what is claimed to be a 40 year gap.

If you are right, then why do none of the Professors of Ancient History in any University in the world agree with you?

Any University in the world? How about all the universities in Russia where the Christ Myth is king? (Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.) Stop making overly broad statements resulting in egg on your face.

 

[Brainache]

No I am applying how the Robin Hood legend better fits actual historical events with a 200 year gap and evidence of being a composite character then we have with Jesus with what is claimed to be a 40 year gap.




Any University in the world? How about all the universities in Russia where the Christ Myth is king? (Nikiforov, Vladimir. "Russian Christianity" in Leslie Houlden (ed.) Jesus in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 749.) Stop making overly broad statements resulting in egg on your face.

I've never heard of this book.

What does it say about the Ancient History that they teach in Russia?

Are they teaching that Jesus probably existed, but wasn't much like he was described in the gospels?

If so, that's the HJ, remember? We've been through this several times.