Bart Ehrman on the Historical Jesus

[maximara]

You must be talking about a different Jesus and a different bible if you think we have lots of evidence of his life outside of the miraculous or divinely prophetic sayings etc.

In the gospels Jesus is presented as constantly miraculous and/or divinely prophetic everywhere he goes and in everything he does.

Do you think there is some other evidence of anyone ever making credible claim to have met or known a living Jesus, such that themselves told us about ordinary details of his human life?

Correction, that is how Jesus is presented in the canonal Gospels. The Gospel of Thomas is nothing but sayings of Jesus; Crossan goes as far as to say Jesus is a talking head in that Gospel as it is devoid of action or great deeds.

There are an estimated 30+ Gospels known to have existed. Some all we have are their names and others all we have are fragments that give no picture as to the nature of the entire work.

 

[IanS]

I'm failing to grasp the joke that must be in there somewhere.
Those two qualities are not oppositional measures.

It's the same as saying that something is logically valid, yet not sound.

Well if what is meant by "historically evident" is not any sort of implication that the thing is at all true or that it has any credible evidence, but only that what is "evident" is that people once told legendary stories of impossible events, then Yahweh, Zeus, Osiris, the Man-in-the-Moon, and every silly story ever mentioned by anyone are all "historically evident" ...

… so words like that seem to be completely meaningless, though no doubt designed to sound impressive, is that the idea?

 

[IanS]

Correction, that is how Jesus is presented in the canonal Gospels. The Gospel of Thomas is nothing but sayings of Jesus; Crossan goes as far as to say Jesus is a talking head in that Gospel as it is devoid of action or great deeds.

There are an estimated 30+ Gospels known to have existed. Some all we have are their names and others all we have are fragments that give no picture as to the nature of the entire work.

No doubt you are correct. I know nothing about the gospel of Thomas. And I was indeed thinking of the canonical gospels in the NT bible.

What sort of sayings are presented there from Jesus? Do they include the sort of things that present Jesus as someone of divine or special insight, knowledge, and guidance etc. which mere mortals do not posses or understand …. someone who somehow knows the wishes & plans of God?

 

[dejudge]

The Gospel of Thomas is virtually useless in the argument for an HJ.

It has NO known early provenance. No supposed early Apologetic writers made mentioned of the Gospel of Thomas and did not admit [doubting] Thomas wrote the Sayings of Jesus.

No fragment of the Gospel of Thomas has been dated to pre 70 CE.

By the way, the Doubting Thomas character is a LATE invention found ONLY in gJohn's Post Resurrection Narratives.

The Post Resurrection Narratives in gJohn with Doubting Thomas are all NON-historical.

 

[JaysonR]

Well if what is meant by "historically evident" is not any sort of implication that the thing is at all true or that it has any credible evidence, but only that what is "evident" is that people once told legendary stories of impossible events, then Yahweh, Zeus, Osiris, the Man-in-the-Moon, and every silly story ever mentioned by anyone are all "historically evident" ...

… so words like that seem to be completely meaningless, though no doubt designed to sound impressive, is that the idea?

That is, in some cases, what is meant by historically evident (though not by any means all cases).
I don't think this means that it is completely meaningless; it means that it's a technical term that serves a purpose of classification.

There is much in the ancient periods, which are only evident to us through nothing more than text.

Even after the ancient period there are cases of this, plenty of them.
As just one such example of this kind, take the case of Eilmer of Malmesbury.
He is a monk of the 11th century credited with gliding for 200 yards.

How do we know this?
William of Malmesbury wrote about it.

Well that sounds fine; he's obviously in the same abby as Eilmer so he was a first-hand witness right?

Wrong.
William never met Eilmer.

William wrote about Eilmer in the 12th c CE. Eilmer died in the 11th c CE.

How did William get the details of a 200 yard glide?
He talked to people that claimed to have seen it.

Or at least, that is what is believed.
We have no way to prove that William did talk to anyone.
We trust him as a source because elsewhere in writing Medieval History he is more accurate than not (much in the same way that we treat Josephus).

So Eilmer's 200 yard flight is historically evident.
Did he actually fly, and did he actually fly 200 yards in the 11th c CE?
We don't know.
All we know is that such is historically evident.

Now Josephus and William have our trust because we can check things that are written by them against other accounts or archaeological evidence since they both wrote on a diversity of subjects and events.

We're pretty lucky in those regards for both, and that's why such figures as William and Josephus are used as comparison points for other works and claims.
They become the measuring stick; the measure of reliability for everything else in the period or regarding the period in which they report upon.

Clearly if such is the case, the implication is that scores of other texts are not so highly regarded, but are never-the-less examined for what we can derive from them regarding the history of the given period.

For a slightly more like comparison, consider Awilda the pirate.
How do we know this figure?

We mostly know the figure from The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers, published in 1837.

Comparable to Jesus, in fact, some academics contest this figure's historicity.

However, both Jesus and this Awilda are historically evident.


So historically evident is a classification; a malleable one.

 

[Brainache]

No doubt you are correct. I know nothing about the gospel of Thomas. And I was indeed thinking of the canonical gospels in the NT bible.

What sort of sayings are presented there from Jesus? Do they include the sort of things that present Jesus as someone of divine or special insight, knowledge, and guidance etc. which mere mortals do not posses or understand …. someone who somehow knows the wishes & plans of God?

IanS apparently has me on ignore, but I thought I would post this anyway, for anyone who's interested:

http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html

These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.

1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

2. Jesus said, "Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]"

3. Jesus said, "If your leaders say to you, 'Look, the (Father's) kingdom is in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you. Rather, the (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you.

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty."

4. Jesus said, "The person old in days won't hesitate to ask a little child seven days old about the place of life, and that person will live.

For many of the first will be last, and will become a single one."

5. Jesus said, "Know what is in front of your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.

For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. [And there is nothing buried that will not be raised.]"
...

Apparently "Didymus" and "Thomas" are names that mean "Twin", so the alleged Author's name is: Twin Judas Twin...

It's not very long. It's just a collection of sayings. The kind of sayings that a Cult leader of the time might have said.

AFAIK it is usually dated to somewhere in the second century, some say later, some say earlier.

 

[IanS]

That is, in some cases, what is meant by historically evident (though not by any means all cases).
I don't think this means that it is completely meaningless; it means that it's a technical term that serves a purpose of classification.

There is much in the ancient periods, which are only evident to us through nothing more than text.

Even after the ancient period there are cases of this, plenty of them.
As just one such example of this kind, take the case of Eilmer of Malmesbury.
He is a monk of the 11th century credited with gliding for 200 yards.

How do we know this?
William of Malmesbury wrote about it.

Well that sounds fine; he's obviously in the same abby as Eilmer so he was a first-hand witness right?

Wrong.
William never met Eilmer.

William wrote about Eilmer in the 12th c CE. Eilmer died in the 11th c CE.

How did William get the details of a 200 yard glide?
He talked to people that claimed to have seen it.

Or at least, that is what is believed.
We have no way to prove that William did talk to anyone.
We trust him as a source because elsewhere in writing Medieval History he is more accurate than not (much in the same way that we treat Josephus).

So Eilmer's 200 yard flight is historically evident.
Did he actually fly, and did he actually fly 200 yards in the 11th c CE?
We don't know.
All we know is that such is historically evident.

Now Josephus and William have our trust because we can check things that are written by them against other accounts or archaeological evidence since they both wrote on a diversity of subjects and events.

We're pretty lucky in those regards for both, and that's why such figures as William and Josephus are used as comparison points for other works and claims.
They become the measuring stick; the measure of reliability for everything else in the period or regarding the period in which they report upon.

Clearly if such is the case, the implication is that scores of other texts are not so highly regarded, but are never-the-less examined for what we can derive from them regarding the history of the given period.

For a slightly more like comparison, consider Awilda the pirate.
How do we know this figure?

We mostly know the figure from The Pirates Own Book: Authentic Narratives of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers, published in 1837.

Comparable to Jesus, in fact, some academics contest this figure's historicity.

However, both Jesus and this Awilda are historically evident.


So historically evident is a classification; a malleable one.

OK, well thanks for taking the time and trouble to write that explanation. It's clearly written too.

It does seem to me virtually worthless though to talk about things like that with the descriptor "historically evident". Because your examples again are evidence of people writing unlikely stories and claims.

In the case of Jesus being "historically evident", there is as I say (afaik) no actual evidence of him "evident" at all. What is "evident" in the historical writing, is lots of legendary messiah stories of the supernatural. But with none of the authors ever having met this supernatural messiah, and none of them naming who it was that told them the stories about a person they themselves had never known.

So what is "historical evident" there, i.e. in the case of Jesus, in not Jesus himself or any evidence of Jesus known as existing. What is "evident" is just a bunch of impossible fictional stories about later non-witnessing people who thought he had once existed in some sense (spiritual or otherwise).

Sorry if that sounds like the usual repetition of the same points I keep making. But I think it's hopelessly misleading to use terms like "historically evident" in the case of NT biblical writing, because (to repeat), what is "evident" is just the story telling. And what is "historically evident absent" is any kind of claim that anyone ever met Jesus and wrote to say so, or any kind of external corroboration, or any physical evidence, or any actual reliable evidence at all.

In fact if we wanted to say something really was/is “historically event” in the NT biblical writing, then the most “evident” feature about all of that Jesus writing is that it’s constantly telling fictional stories of the supernatural. That’s the feature that really is quite certainly “evident” in that historical writing - i.e., it’s persistent untrue fictional nature. So maybe more accurate to describe it saying “historically evident as fiction”.

 

[JaysonR]

Ian,

Which is why I wrote before:

What these texts, and all the others outside of the canonized texts, inform us of is not really much regarding any specific individual - as even if any of those individuals are accurate, they are grossly misrepresented for the motives of the message any given author wishes to have valued through them, but instead, they inform us of the values of two groups:

1. a minority diaspora era Hebrews who reflectively saw sympathy in the Galilean philosophies of coexistence and tolerance within their own culture ("separate but equal") for survival as opposed to militant opposition for distinct governmental separatism (which the attempt of repeatedly damaged their people more than aided)
2. various Roman territory cultures who took up any form of these legends and converted them into their understanding and values.
3. later evolving sociopolitical landscape of what would become Orthodox and non-Orthodox followings of these legends and the manners in which the legends were understood and valued.

(should have read "of three groups", not "two")

But don't think that the case of Jesus means that the classification of historically evident is a meaningless classification.
It really is of great value to the field as a means of organizing an otherwise mass of junk.

Jesus is simply the most popular case of contention regarding historicity; no one really cares about Awilda the pirate (except for perhaps a few who are specialized in female liberation and power through history).

To me, it's all rather silly as well, as the only reason Jesus is so popular in this manner is because a religion relies on the figure, but the silly part about that is even if Jesus did exist and we had archaeological evidence of the figure, we wouldn't have the religion's divine version of Jesus, and in not having the divine version of Jesus already that religion falls flat.

So really...almost no one wants a real Jesus proven, if you think about it.

1. Historically, Jesus is not essential (meaning, our historical timelines of civilizations do not change, nor does any attributed control or power change).
2. Theologians don't really want a non-divine Jesus since that wipes out their religion.
3. Anti-religious advocates don't want (by that I mean; they aren't going to go looking for proof for Jesus) any Jesus since that would just support the institution they tend to be opposed to (though I would argue just the opposite to this based on bullet 2 above).

No one really wants a Jesus.
Everyone wants their solution.

Jesus' historicity is just a money making field at this point.
It's an easy way to make a buck writing about something that anyone can go about writing about and the average Joe can pick up and read it and get excited about, so book sales...yay!

How many folks do you think are lining up for one of my personal favorite books Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) by Karel van der Toorn?

*crickets*
...yeah...that's what I thought. Which is why the book still costs $200 (hey, that's an improvement; it was at $400 a few years ago).

Jesus; the Captain Crunch of History - nutritionally crap, but masses of people love to eat it anyway, and it's really easy to make so that's a plus.

Need to microwave some history? Grab Jesus.

 

[eight bits]

English translations of the Gospel of Thomas are easily located. I recommend this one, which was prepared for an American college course, and is offered on the college's website,

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/PDF/166/Judaism Christianity/166Thomas.pdf

It has the Jesus Seminar "color coding." That is, the sayings are classified according to that (unrepresnetative) sample of scholars' opinions about "whether Jesus really said it." It may be confsuing, since JS classified many familiar sayings found in both the canonical Gospels and in Thomas as inauthentic (black in the color code). However, if you take the whole thing, and subtract out anything that is both black and incomprehensible (like saying 114 - everything will be fine when Mary becomes a man; WTF?), then you have an estimate of "core Thomas."

It is core Thomas that is a candidate for being as early as some (or, if you smoke the right blend, earlier than all) the canonical Gospels. The incomprehensible black-letter stuff is Gnostic, and so very likely much later. The idea is the later stuff may have been added to an early "core."

I had to laugh when max said that there are no mighty deeds. That might help explain why core Thomas didn't make the canon later on (although, personally, I think saying 113 is both core and fatal to its inclusion in later instituionalized Christianity). However, the original point of Jesus having done more-or-less mighty deeds is that you, not Jesus, but you can do mighty deeds. Thomas is the flight manual. Follow Jesus' easy step-by-step flight program and you, too, can fly. Operators are standing by, and the call is free. So call now.

 

[IanS]

Ian,

Which is why I wrote before:

(should have read "of three groups", not "two")

But don't think that the case of Jesus means that the classification of historically evident is a meaningless classification.
It really is of great value to the field as a means of organizing an otherwise mass of junk.

Jesus is simply the most popular case of contention regarding historicity; no one really cares about Awilda the pirate (except for perhaps a few who are specialized in female liberation and power through history).

To me, it's all rather silly as well, as the only reason Jesus is so popular in this manner is because a religion relies on the figure, but the silly part about that is even if Jesus did exist and we had archaeological evidence of the figure, we wouldn't have the religion's divine version of Jesus, and in not having the divine version of Jesus already that religion falls flat.

So really...almost no one wants a real Jesus proven, if you think about it.

1. Historically, Jesus is not essential (meaning, our historical timelines of civilizations do not change, nor does any attributed control or power change).
2. Theologians don't really want a non-divine Jesus since that wipes out their religion.
3. Anti-religious advocates don't want (by that I mean; they aren't going to go looking for proof for Jesus) any Jesus since that would just support the institution they tend to be opposed to (though I would argue just the opposite to this based on bullet 2 above).

No one really wants a Jesus.
Everyone wants their solution.

Jesus' historicity is just a money making field at this point.
It's an easy way to make a buck writing about something that anyone can go about writing about and the average Joe can pick up and read it and get excited about, so book sales...yay!

How many folks do you think are lining up for one of my personal favorite books Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) by Karel van der Toorn?

*crickets*
...yeah...that's what I thought. Which is why the book still costs $200 (hey, that's an improvement; it was at $400 a few years ago).

Jesus; the Captain Crunch of History - nutritionally crap, but masses of people love to eat it anyway, and it's really easy to make so that's a plus.

Need to microwave some history? Grab Jesus.

OK, well I think you and I are of course in agreement about the essential fact of how poor the evidence is, and also I think agreeing that the appeal to bible scholars as authorities is a misplaced here.

And I have probably gone as far as I want to go, or need to go, in criticising that term “historically evident”, certainly as it is applied to the biblical writing about Jesus. So just very briefly still on that point -

- it may be useful in a much wider and very generalised context for historians to classify anything as “historically evident”, but if it just means that the stories (real or not) have been told, written, recorded, recounted in the past, then absolutely everything imaginable becomes “historically evident” … anything anyone has ever said or written becomes “historically evident” ... the fact of all our conversations here is “historically evident” … what was written about Mohamed flying to heaven on a winged horse is “historically evident” … the Loch Ness Monster and the Roswell Flying saucer & occupants are all “historically evident”, etc.

But in the case of Jesus, where there is actually no evidence of his human existence, all that is really “historically evident” are the religious stories which tell of belief in a supernatural messiah (a messiah who in one form or other had been prophesised in the OT since at least 500BC anyway).

On the quite separate point of whether or not the existence of Jesus is vital to the current day religion, I notice you said the following -


“ To me, it's all rather silly as well, as the only reason Jesus is so popular in this manner is because a religion relies on the figure, but the silly part about that is even if Jesus did exist and we had archaeological evidence of the figure, we wouldn't have the religion's divine version of Jesus, and in not having the divine version of Jesus already that religion falls flat ”


I think it is an obvious mistake to believe that Christianity today would be unaffected if Christians no longer believed Jesus was a real figure, if that is what you are saying?

I don’t believe the church could continue to preach the biblical stories of Jesus if it was simultaneously agreeing that the stories were untrue and that Jesus was fictional.

If as you suggest, we found evidence of Jesus as a human person, (e.g. archeological evidence or skeletal remains or whatever), such as to render Jesus mortal and not divine, and hence you say "the religion falls flat", I do not think that would cause a single Christian to doubt that Jesus was anything other than precisely the figure described in the bible.

Just because you find definitive archaeological or skeletal remains, or just because we have the situation that we actually do have right now, where Christians can cite "all" academic bible scholars and theologians (who are called “historians”) proclaiming that Jesus certainly existed and saying that any suggestion to the contrary is to be derided as conspiracy theory akin to holocaust denial etc., that would not deter a single literalist bible believer from believing Jesus was a real figure. On the contrary, Christians worldwide would, and in fact do, believe that support from bible scholars and theologian academics is proof positive that the biblical Jesus definitely existed.

The only finding that would seriously threaten the Christian religious certainty, is if genuine academic authorities started to say there is actually no good evidence of Jesus, and that in fact evidence to the contrary suggests he was probably only ever a fictional character. That would inevitably be a very different matter for most Christians, imho. In that case their could be no credible maintaining of the belief that a fictional figure was the Son of God who performed many miracles and resurrected to heaven etc. (see footnote).

Also, if it is admitted that Jesus probably did not exist, then a further problem for Christians today and for the Church itself, is that it also calls into question the existence of God. Because if Jesus was fictional, and the bible stories untrue, then God could not have sent his son to save mankind, and Jesus could not have resurrected to heaven etc. So the biblical mentions of God himself are then called in serious question.



Footnote - most Christians probably do believe in the biblical miracles, it seems. For example - in a famous filmed interview between Richard Dawkins and the previous Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop openly said that he does literally believe that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead an that Jesus was the result of a virgin birth by the grace of God.

 

[maximara]

All we know is that such is historically evident.

Now Josephus and William have our trust because we can check things that are written by them against other accounts or archaeological evidence since they both wrote on a diversity of subjects and events.

We're pretty lucky in those regards for both, and that's why such figures as William and Josephus are used as comparison points for other works and claims.
They become the measuring stick; the measure of reliability for everything else in the period or regarding the period in which they report upon.

The problem is there is no evidence William's account has been tampered with while there is plenty to suggest Josephus' has been.

No one before Eusebius in 4th century mentions the Testimonium Flavianum; Justin Martyr (c100 - c165), Theophilus (d. 180), Irenaeus (c120 - c203), Clement of Alexandria (c150-c215), Origen (c185-c254), Hippolytus (c170 - c235), Minucius Felix (d. c250), and Anatolius (230-280) all logically should have mentioned such a passage but don't. In fact it has been recorded that as late as 1600 there existed a copy of Josephus with NO Testimonium Flavianum (Drews, Arthur (1912) The Witness To The Historicity of Jesus, page 9)

The "brother of Jesus, him called Christ" is suspect for several reasons:

1) In Against Celsus Origen expressly states "this writer" (Josephus) ... "in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple" ... "says nevertheless" ... "that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ)" in Against Celsus 1.47 and reiterates "But at that time there were no armies around Jerusalem, encompassing and enclosing and besieging it; for the siege began in the reign of Nero, and lasted till the government of Vespasian, whose son Titus destroyed Jerusalem, on account, as Josephus says, of James the Just, the brother of Jesus who was called Christ, but in reality, as the truth makes dear, on account of Jesus Christ the Son of God." in Against Celsus 2.13

2) In the 4th century Rufinus of Aquileia wrote "The epistle in which the same Clement, writing to James the Lord's brother, informs him of the death of Peter,... " Now the earliest Peter is said to have died is 64...two years after the James in Josephus.

3) Other then Jerome everybody else from Hegesippus to Clement of Alexandria to Eusebius of Caesarea and beyond puts the death of James the Lord's brother at c69 CE some seven years after the James in Josephus died.

In fact, Eusebius of Caesarea in his Church History, Book III, ch. 11 clearly writes "After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem which immediately followed..." but there are seven years and four High Priests between these two events. If the Josephus passage is genuine so either we have one of the wonkiest definitions of "immediately followed" in the history of the world (though Origen seems to be using the same wonky definition but the other details he provides for the passage don't match our version) or these are two different James and the passage was tampered with to make the connection.

By contrast the record Eilmer of Malmesbury's supposed glide is recounted by Helinand of Froidmont (c 1229), Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (c 1241), Vincent of Beauvais (1250s), Roger Bacon (ca. 1260) and so on. At worst there is only a 100 year gap between William of Malmesbury's 1125 account and an other author mentioning it. The powerful Testimonium Flavianum has a gap of nearly three centuries

So you are comparing apples and oranges here.

 

[maximara]

The only finding that would seriously threaten the Christian religious certainty, is if genuine academic authorities started to say there is actually no good evidence of Jesus, and that in fact evidence to the contrary suggests he was probably only ever a fictional character.

I disagree. If we found bones of a 1st century man that showed evidence of being crucified that thanks to some In situ evidence is identified as belonging to "Jesus the Natzraya" that would really threaten the Christian religious certainty on a far more fundamental level.

You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed but you would also run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians 15:14)

The apologist argument has always boiled down to Myth, Madman, or Messiah. Well, finding Jesus' physical remains would shove Messiah down the tubes and leave everyone with (historical) Myth and Madman as their only two viable choices.

 

[Brainache]

I disagree. If we found bones of a 1st century man that showed evidence of being crucified that thanks to some In situ evidence is identified as belonging to "Jesus the Natzraya" that would really threaten the Christian religious certainty on a far more fundamental level.

You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed but you would also run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians 15:14)

The apologist argument has always boiled down to Myth, Madman, or Messiah. Well, finding Jesus' physical remains would shove Messiah down the tubes and leave everyone with (historical) Myth and Madman as their only two viable choices.

I don't see how "Messiah" was ever a viable choice. That never stopped anyone.

Whatever Historians conclude will have little or no impact on the Religion. Look at Mormonism for a perfect example of the imperviousness of Religion to facts.

People have been drifting away from the Church for centuries and it has nothing to do with Historical Scholarship.

 

[JaysonR]

Ian,

That comment was stating that if we were to find some physical evidence that concretely proves that Jesus existed, that such evidence would be more damning to the Christian religion than if no one every found any more material on the figure than what exists today; simply because anything we could find would be a rather mundane figure and individual - not a superhuman divine figure.

One of the sweet ironies is that an historical Jesus actually causes far more damage to the religion than it could ever help, for any historical version of this figure is entirely absent the divine attributes, and those divine attributes summarize the principle backbone of the Christian religion.

Just simply existing doesn't really cut it.
Not being able to prove that existence actually helps more than if the existence was proven (for the religion anyway).


Maximra,

Forgive the imperfection of the comparison; I was really just grabbing the first cases that come to mind, and it wasn't supposed to justify or verify Jesus' historicity in doing so.
Instead, it was to help explain the classification of historically evident; focusing on the issue that many things are second-hand, that isn't the part that is unique about Jesus' case.
As you noted, the quality of the material is what makes it unique; as well, that we haven't any real verification of the claims outside of the claims themselves which stand as unknown in authorship.

This is why I gave the example of Awilda a bit further down as that is a more appropriate comparison and indeed stands at about the same position in historicity as Jesus; only, no one really cares about Awilda so it's not going to really spark 7000 posts of arguments.


Just to be clear, I am not making a case for Jesus; nor do I make a case against Jesus in these remarks.
I am only remarking on the difference between something being classed as historically evident, or the historicity being decided to the positive, and something having been actually extant.


This loops back to some of what you said Ian,
What determines the classification of something being historically evident isn't just that the field received an account in writing (though sometimes you come across some entries that definitely give you reason to question if that's how it got put in), but instead, that a writing arrives to the field and the field...essentially vets the material.

Firstly, there's the physical tests on the writing: is it the right age for what it appears to be, is the ink the right kind of ink for the era and region in question, are there any traces on the material that should simply not be there for that region and time, and similar kinds of physical questions?

Secondly, there is the paleographic "vetting", in which the style, prose, physical layout (blocking), grammatical structure, and several similar concepts are compared against the known variables for the period and time.

That just gets us to verifying that the artifact itself is worth reading; that doesn't tell us if the content it accurate or not.

So then the content is read in a variety of manners. You would think that it's all done using paleography, or first-hand, but instead usually what happens is someone "edits" the artifact and publishes an academic copy of the artifact in (usually) English (though in the past, sometimes that was German as well).
Then that opens up the availability quite a bit and various scholars dip their hands into the material and toss their "two-cents" around regarding the content (now, typically, this is all very boring and not very quick as most content is extremely specific in case and amazingly benign).

Jesus is a bit weird in that the historicity of Jesus went completely backwards from how we normally go about this process.
Jesus, as an historically accepted figure, predated the Western cultural historical society itself - it was inherited.

After being inherited, then the worse kind of work was done, "biblical archaeology", where scholars set out to prove the Bible's accuracy by locating material using the Bible.
That, as a whole, had terrible results (but still oddly has a few remaining adherents; though at a severe cost to approval, as the field of archaeology considers this kind of archaeology to be paramount to us hearing of clergy violating the youth).

So how does Jesus still stand extant?
Good question.

Yes, we do inherit the positive for history and wait for the negative to be proven if the content is capable of being reasoned as possibly true (at least for ancient history), but I think the case of Jesus goes a bit too far, honestly, for the ethics of the field.

If I had absolute rule over history, I'd decree that Jesus is now declared not historical until the case is re-examined from scratch, and theologians would not be accepted independent of secular historians and anthropologists.


Here's the main reason most of the secular scholarship considers it likely for Jesus to have existed (note: I'm not condoning the opinion):
It is the nature of the texts taken in context of the period.

It's not a very strong argument for forum discussions; in fact, it's probably one of the weakest arguments in common discussion.
However, from the perspective of working in the field (as a secular anthropologist or historian would), it carries a pretty compelling amount of weight.

What that "nature of the texts taken in context of the period" means is compare these stories to other texts of all sorts during the time of 2nd c CE back to 1st c BCE.
There is one remarkable aspect; they are entirely unique.

1. No one was writing fictional accounts of alleged real 'walk-among-you-daily' individuals.
2. No one was creating mythologies that fit this style and form.
3. No one was writing complete fabrications of text this way about a no-one person, or even some messiah (our closest ballpark would be Zoroaster, but we don't know how that story looked around this time yet; though clearly it had impact on Judaism as well as this Jesus story).
4. On the other hand, oral tradition was definitely prevalent, and Hebrew peoples did not tend to write down much about those whom they followed, whereas non-Hebrews definitely did.
5. The sociopolitical and philosophical content contained within matches the period being claimed; there's nothing that stands remarkably out of place for 1st c BCE to 1st c CE Hebraic politics and philosophy for the bulk of the content (of several texts, not just canonical).

So...many professionals look at the stories and decide a conclusion that someone most likely did exist which inspired these stories since, anthropologically speaking, other options don't tend to make sense.

I can sympathize with this and I can also agree with it, but, I don't think enough imagination has possibly been put to controlled use in arriving at that conclusion.

For instance, we know that in the 6th c BCE, the Hebrews were in Babylonian exile and mostly remained there until around the 3rd c BCE.
We also know this had cultural and lasting impacts on their theological constructs and philosophies; not to mention their political situations.
And we also know that the Zoroaster legends and stories are from roughly around this same time frame.
Further, the messianic expansion of Judaism only really began following their return from this exile, and then following severe instances of corruption surrounding and during the Hazmonean era.
Meanwhile the apocalyptic fashion of Judaism began almost along side of the exilic period.

We also know that other prophetic and messianic claiming individuals surfaced in and around 1st c BCE to 1st c CE.

We know, again, that Hebrew culture did not value writing about the individuals very much and relied more on oral traditions when the content was non-Law instructions.

And, again, we know that non-Hebrew cultures did value writing such accounts down far more than the Hebrew culture did.


So, rather than just arriving at the conclusion that the texts must be rooted upon some individual due to the numbered considerations above, it stands as possible, that there were stories going around the 1st c BCE to 1st c CE era regarding messianic and prophetic individuals who were outspoken and provocative, and of which were entirely wiped out following the Roman razing of Judah. However, these 'holy men' of the culture and era could have impressed the social culture of the Mediterranean (which was in an era of ingesting and mixing religions and philosophies) and that same suite of cultures could have valued the telling of the story of Hebrew holy prophets to the point of summarizing their plight by borrowing from a familiar tangent of Zoroastrian legends since some of these figures could have spoke philosophies quite similar to the Zoroastrian style due to the influences such had on Judaism during the exilic period.

This could have even began in and around the Judean area, as scores of Hellenistic structures litter the Levant region for the period - it is not as if they were absent the area.


This is an example of an alternative to assuming that Jesus probably existed based on the numbered list above's reasoning.

 

[dejudge]

Here's the main reason most of the secular scholarship considers it likely for Jesus to have existed (note: I'm not condoning the opinion):
It is the nature of the texts taken in context of the period.

Your statement is simply erroneous. You do NOT know as a fact, You have no evidence or no data that "most of secular scholarship" consider it likely for Jesus to have existed because of the nature of the texts.

You have already admitted that you don't care whether or not Jesus existed so it is extremely unlikely that you have done any serious inquiry into the question.

We have Philo's "On Embassy to Gaius", Josephus' "Wars of the Jews", "Antiquities of the Jews", the "Autobiography of Josephus", Tacitus' "Annals" and "Histories", Suetonius' "Life of the Twelve Caesars", writings of Pliny the Elder, letter of Pliny the younger on the Eruption, Cassius Dio's Roman History and other writings.

They are very much different to the NT texts.

In fact, the NT texts match Jewish, Greek and Roman mythology.

For example there are 12 biographies of Roman Emperors by Suetonius and these writings easily expose the biographies of Jesus of Nazareth as complete myth fables--total nonsense.

Compare the Suetonius on Tiberius and gMatthew on Jesus.


Suetonius' Life of Tiberius

V. Some have supposed that Tiberius was born at Fundi, on no better evidence than that his maternal grandmother was a native of that place, and that later a statue of Good Fortune was set up there by decree of the Senate.

But according to the most numerous and trustworthy authorities, he was born at Rome, on the Palatine, the sixteenth day before the Kalends of December, in the consulship of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Lucius Munatius Plancus (the former for the second time) while the war of Philippi was going on [November 16, 42 B.C.].

In fact it is so recorded both in the calendar and in the public gazette.
Yet in spite of this some write that he was born in the preceding year, that of Hirtius and Pansa, and others in the following year, in the consulate of Servilius Isauricus and Lucius Antonius.

Matthew 1

---18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together , she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. 19 Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example , was minded to put her away privily.

20 But while he thought on these things, behold , the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying , Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. 21 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS.......

It is clear that the "Biography" of Jesus is NOT history and does NOT match biographical writings of antiquity.

The story of Jesus matches Plutarch's "Romulus".

http://classics.mit.edu/Plutarch/romulus.html

 

[JaysonR]

Dejudge,

That wasn't my argument. I was summarizing a common position among anthropologists and historians who are for an historical Jesus position. Note that later I pointed out some issues with this position and countered just even one other simple possibility that could be claimed in the same fashion which would deny the claim I summarized.

When I stated that "most", I was using it in the sense of, "most who do, do so with an argument of...".
I was not outlining that most of the population of secular scholarship leans one way or another.

 

[IanS]

I disagree. If we found bones of a 1st century man that showed evidence of being crucified that thanks to some In situ evidence is identified as belonging to "Jesus the Natzraya" that would really threaten the Christian religious certainty on a far more fundamental level.

You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed but you would also run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." (1 Corinthians 15:14)

The apologist argument has always boiled down to Myth, Madman, or Messiah. Well, finding Jesus' physical remains would shove Messiah down the tubes and leave everyone with (historical) Myth and Madman as their only two viable choices.

I think your own observation that "You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed" would be the only thing that mattered not only to the Christian faithful en mass, but also to the Church leaders themselves (e.g. the Pope, Archbishop of Canterbury, other most senior cardinals and archbishops). That would be a totally triumphant key discovery for them all.

The fact that as your highlight says, if we found his crucified bones "it would run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.", that would be supremely easily countered in the fist 5 seconds simply by saying it was the spirit of Christ that rose from crucifixion ... Jesus was always said to be a spiritual form "made flesh", he is the Son of a heavenly spirit God ... only the "flesh" died, the real Jesus rose from the dead just as claimed in the bible.

Almost any bible passage you tried to claim as opposed to that explanation could iirc be very easily waved away in the same fashion - just because you found the bones would have zero detrimental affect on Christian belief or literal belief in the bible. On the contrary, finding the bones of a crucified Jesus would be a 100% massive boost to Christianity, and would probably instantly increase the number of new Christian believers worldwide.

But we can perfectly politely and respectfully agree disagree on things like that, of course.

 

[Brainache]

I think your own observation that "You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed" would be the only thing that mattered not only to the Christian faithful en mass, but also to the Church leaders themselves (e.g. the Pope, Archbishop of Canterbury, other most senior cardinals and archbishops). That would be a totally triumphant key discovery for them all.

The fact that as your highlight says, if we found his crucified bones "it would run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.", that would be supremely easily countered in the fist 5 seconds simply by saying it was the spirit of Christ that rose from crucifixion ... Jesus was always said to be a spiritual form "made flesh", he is the Son of a heavenly spirit God ... only the "flesh" died, the real Jesus rose from the dead just as claimed in the bible.

Almost any bible passage you tried to claim as opposed to that explanation could iirc be very easily waved away in the same fashion - just because you found the bones would have zero detrimental affect on Christian belief or literal belief in the bible. On the contrary, finding the bones of a crucified Jesus would be a 100% massive boost to Christianity, and would probably instantly increase the number of new Christian believers worldwide.

But we can perfectly politely and respectfully agree disagree on things like that, of course.

What makes you think that some Academic "proof" that Jesus was a myth, would affect Christianity at all?

 

[pakeha]

English translations of the Gospel of Thomas are easily located. I recommend this one, which was prepared for an American college course, and is offered on the college's website,

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~rfrey/PDF/166/Judaism Christianity/166Thomas.pdf ...

Thanks for the link. I had it book-marked on a previous incarnation of my lap-top and am glad to have it again.

... one of my personal favorite books Family Religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel: Continuity and Change in the Forms of Religious Life (Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East, Vol 7) by Karel van der Toorn? ...

That title is now on my wish list. Thanks for the heads-up!

The Galilean perspectives were really quite defined and shaped by their limitations of self-governance and will to power.
They had synagogues sitting right next to Hellenistic temples whether they liked it or not, and they absolutely lacked any sort of military might to resist any force pushed upon them.

Even before they were "Galilee" (which occurred in the Hasmonean era), this region was tossed around larger nations' control like a canoe in an Atlantic Ocean hurricane.

You would go to the Sea of Galilee and see grand Hellenistic structures on one side and behind you would be Hebrew structures.

This is the boundary area where Alexander stopped; where he Hellenized the Judaic religion in the North.

This is a group of people ran back and forth over negligent of their interests more times than possibly any other group of people still surviving in the Levant region by the 1st c CE.

They had no other culture than just putting up with whichever government was imposed upon them, and they even served two governments at once - paying loyalty to Judah and Rome (for example) at the same time. Meaning, they paid tax to both (like State and Federal income tax).

Their tolerance was one of survival, but it became a general defining difference between the North and South; the south is where you were going to find more militant speaking calls for the future of their culture, where the North really didn't call out for much of anything.
The groups that we find up there mostly call upon adherents to live according to the Laws of Moses and remain true to their way of life while at the same time living among a mixture of culture they had no option but to accept.

At the same time, they also lacked the Temple with easy access. Similar to Muslims of today, they were required to make a trip to the Temple at least once in their life, but outside of that, most of their time for their religion came from their local Synagogues which operated more like a public forum or sometimes like a modern Protestant church (kind of) than the ritual-heavy Temple services.

As a result of being mostly filled with synagogues and separated from Judah by a literal country being in the way, they also didn't have the Law on record in text as accessibly as was possible in the South; they also lacked the Judges and Priest class for the most part.

It's not that they were more "liberal" (to borrow a phrase), but they were more surviving by hanging on to their culture in spite of all of these challenges, and as one would expect; this created a slightly different perspective than the culture surrounding Temple-centered life in Judah.

Keeping in mind that the primary Market place in Judah was at Temple as well; meanwhile, in Galilee, the primary market place was Tyre (not a Hebrew-centered city by any stretch).


Does that answer your question?

Thanks for such a thoughtful reply.
You've greatly expanded my own understanding of what 1st cent Galilee might have been like before 70.
"The groups that we find up there mostly call upon adherents to live according to the Laws of Moses and remain true to their way of life while at the same time living among a mixture of culture they had no option but to accept."

...Consider this for a moment: the average time it takes a new result and field-known information to make it through the entire academic textual field is around 50 years.

Yes; 50 years is how long it takes for new information to propagate in the field of history on average.

Think about that for a moment; let that sink in.

Now, if that really frustrates you as much as it does many folks in the field or myself, then welcome to the frustrating and really confusing world of anthropology and history.

Crazy people only should venture past the door.

Amen, brother, amen.

 

[maximara]

I think your own observation that "You would have what could arguably be the most powerful possible proof that Jesus actually existed" would be the only thing that mattered not only to the Christian faithful en mass, but also to the Church leaders themselves (e.g. the Pope, Archbishop of Canterbury, other most senior cardinals and archbishops). That would be a totally triumphant key discovery for them all.

The fact that as your highlight says, if we found his crucified bones "it would run headlong into Paul: "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.", that would be supremely easily countered in the fist 5 seconds simply by saying it was the spirit of Christ that rose from crucifixion ... Jesus was always said to be a spiritual form "made flesh", he is the Son of a heavenly spirit God ... only the "flesh" died, the real Jesus rose from the dead just as claimed in the bible.

Almost any bible passage you tried to claim as opposed to that explanation could iirc be very easily waved away in the same fashion - just because you found the bones would have zero detrimental affect on Christian belief or literal belief in the bible. On the contrary, finding the bones of a crucified Jesus would be a 100% massive boost to Christianity, and would probably instantly increase the number of new Christian believers worldwide.

But we can perfectly politely and respectfully agree disagree on things like that, of course.

What makes you think that some Academic "proof" that Jesus was a myth, would affect Christianity at all?

Because no religion is static or monolithic. Universal reconciliation (the idea that even Hell is temporary and all people will wind up in heaven) goes back to at least the time of Origen and perhaps further and yet there are denominations who would call that view nonsense.

As I said before thanks to the apologists Christianity has locked itself into this Myth, Man or Messiah mindset.

Apostle's Creed: "I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting." Not the spirit but body; the creed is very specific here and the majority of Christianity holds to the resurrection of the body so the finding of Jesus' bones (proving him to to be a historical myth) would be a major blow.

The denominations that go for spiritual resurrection or take Jesus' teaching as a philosophy would more or let go on as normal but the denominations that have hung their flag on the resurrection of the body would be up cripple creek without a paddle or a clue how to get out of the mess (other then denying reality).