Jesus Christ?

[eight bits]

It was the Williams translation, the same one you linked to afterwards. (Though from a different site. But same text.)

Thank you. So, we seem to be in agreement that the scholarly and widely accepted Williams translation suffices as a basis for discussion here. If I uderstand max, he likes it now, too..

That's peachy, because the substance of the dispute between you and me is not the black letter text, but what can be inferred from it about the author's intent. Specifically whether, despite the syntactical ambiguity of a carefully pruned snippet, and contrary to everything else we know about Epiphanius, he taught that the Nicene Creed errs in its description of the earthly Jesus.

We also seem to be in agreement that the only way for third parties to proceed now is to consult the sources, whether Greek or English, and to judge the case for themselves. If in doing so, they find something new, then we are joined in the hope that they will share.

So, we're back at status quo ante, before max revived the thread. Since I have already replied to max, my work here would seem to be done for now, until further evidence arrives.

Beady offered a different question at post 87. I hope it doesn't get lost in the tussle.

Of course, I'll still call you a BS-er

I'm sure you will. Name-calling is the best you've got.

 

[HansMustermann]

Thank you. So, we seem to be in agreement that the scholarly and widely accepted Williams translation suffices as a basis for discussion here. If I uderstand max, he likes it now, too.

Only very loosely speaking. I will take Williams as good and authoritative in its own right, and I guess it suffices if that's all we've got. But I'd still like to see the Koine Greek original, if anyone can help with that. Ultimately no translation can be better or more authoritative than the original. No matter how high my opinion may be of one particular translation, you know, the original is even better. But if we can get that, ok, we go by a translation.
.

That's peachy, because the substance of the dispute between you and me is not the black letter text, but what can be inferred from it about the author's intent.

Actually, the contention is more like whether you can just override what the text says based on just what you imagine the author's intent to be. My position is more like that if the text says X, then it says X. I'm not doing the history version of catholicism, where if you don't like what it's written, you can make up what you think the author actually wanted to say.

So, no, exactly that kind of 'inferring' out of thin air is what I'm not accepting.

Or in more formal terms you can't override what the guy actually wrote, based on just an argument from personal incredulity.

Specifically whether, despite the syntactical ambiguity of a carefully pruned snippet, and contrary to everything else we know about Epiphanius, he taught that the Nicene Creed errs in its description of the earthly Jesus.

I don't think it's ambiguous at all, to be honest. It requires a very tortured and unnatural reading, and ignoring the gist of his argument, to get that it's totally unknown where Jesus comes in in that chronology.

As for the rest, I still don't see it making a huge difference. What we actually know about Epiphanius was that he routinely wrote based on second hand hearsay (e.g., he even confesses that when writing against Origen, and that he had no problem with his opinions differring from mainstream (e.g., he was an iconoclast, when mainstream Catholicism wasn't.) Nicene Catholics were not clones and connected to a hive mind to all have the same opinions anyway, and the guy was all around the Fan Dumb trope incarnated, and wasn't as much into fitting in, as into telling everyone that he knows best because he's the right kind of Jesus fanboy.

I.e., I really have no good reason to pull a No True Nicene (or Scotsman) there.

We also seem to be in agreement that the only way for third parties to proceed now is to consult the sources, whether Greek or English, and to judge the case for themselves. If in doing so, they find something new, then we are joined in the hope that they will share.

Well, obviously, neither of us can tell people what to believe, and if anyone finds more relevant information, I sure hope they'll share it

 

[Craig B]

May I open, or reopen, another theatre of battle in the Epiphanius controversy. Sorry it's from wiki but anyway

Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, mentions a Judah Kyriakos, great grandson of Jude, as last Jewish Bishop of Jerusalem, that lived beyond Bar Kokhba's revolt.

This can be reconciled with a Jude, and therefore his brother Jesus, who lived c30 AD, but a 100 BC Jude is unlikely to have had a great grandson alive "beyond" 135 AD. Thats three generations in 240 years or so. Most improbable. Thus, whether the Jewish Bishop, or Jude, or Jesus, is a historical person or not, Epiphanius evidently believed in the orthodox chronology regarding Jesus, to situate a bishop with this ancestry at such a late date.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I guess it would help if you could provide at least a chapter from the Panarion, so I can read the actual claim. I'm a bit lazy to read the whole Panarion for that (it's a fair bit of text, and at that: face-palm grade of text) and at a quick googling, nobody seems to provide a reference for that, even when they provide references for Eusebius and Hegesipus talking about the same dudes.

I even hit Wikipedia in search of their reference, but they seem to only refer to 1-46 -- I assume it means book 1 heresy 46 -- but at a quick eyeballing, it seems to have nothing to do with that. At 46 he does mention a bishop apointment, which i suppose could form an upper date for how long Judah was bishop of Jerusalem, but I don't see any instance of even the word Judah there. Again, at a quick eyeballing.

From what I can tell from the Eusebius account, it seems to be a pious Christian fiction, in which the last descendants of Jesus's family are put to death under Domitian for being of the lineage of David, and on top of that relatives of Jesus. Needless to say, Domitian wouldn't actually try to exterminate 3/4 of the Jews for being related to David, nor care about that, or about kinship to a non-existent nailed rebel from decades ago. Also needless to say, Domitian was waaay before the Bar Kochba revolt.

The story seems to then be pushed forward in time -- rather consistent with early Christians manufacturing continuous chains of information to give themselves legitimacy -- first to Trajan's time, then all the way to Antoninus Pius (IF Epiphanius was indeed saying that).

Considering that such pious fictions were rather common, and nobody was bothered by discrepancies, I don't see why it would be a problem for Epiphanius, to be honest. His sources for such a Jude relative of Jesus would have pointed at a much earlier date than his, yet Epiphanius (supposedly) gives a much later date for no good reason, other than maybe providing a contrast to the next appointed bishop. I.e., my take would be simply that Epiphanius is telling a fib. He's taking a much earlier event and extending its end date to where it suits the point he's making. If in the process he creates a genealogy problem, meh, you're just seeing the effects of not thinking it over twice.

But that's largely interpolating. As I was saying, if someone could provide a book and verse number, that would be most helpful.

 

[Craig B]

Well, I guess it would help if you could provide at least a chapter from the Panarion, so I can read the actual claim. <snip>
But that's largely interpolating. As I was saying, if someone could provide a book and verse number, that would be most helpful.

These are very reasonable requests and I will strive to fulfil them.

 

[eight bits]

Craig

The passage you are looking for is, I think, in Book 2, part 66, section 20. However, you may have difficulty locating a freely readable web version of Williams' translation of Book 2, since it is not in the public domain.

However, if your goal was to establish Epiphanius' knowledge and faithful transmission of the canonical teaching of Jesus' life dates within the Panarion, then we read in the same part 29 as we have been discussing, that Jesus is depicted as speaking with Pilate,

29.4: 6 ... for indeed his kingdom is not earthly, as he said to Pontius Pilate in the Gospel, 'My Kingdom is not of this world.'

In the next part, 30, against the Ebionites, we have a series of anecdotes about Josephus of Tiberias, not the historian, but a Jewish convert to Christianity in the time of Constantine. He is supposedly told by a Jewish informant:

30:.9: 3 An elder, a scholar of the law, came and whispered to him, 'Believe in Jesus, crucified under Pontius Pilate the governor, Son of God first yet later born of Mary; the Christ of God and risen from the dead. And believe that he will come to judge and quick and the dead.' That same Josephus told me this plainly during his story, as I can truthfully say.

(What the elder says is a close paraphrase from the intersection of the Nicene Creed and the earlier so-called Apostles' Creed, both easily found on several sites on the web. This is orthodoxy in the raw.)

Later in the same part, throughout its section 29, Epiphanius discusses Matthew in rebuttal to the heresy of the part. In the course of this, Epiphanius places Jesus' birth in the time of Herod:

30.29: 1 and 2 And that he was God as soon as he was born and not a mere man, the magi will plainly show. For after a period of two years—as they told Herod the time the star had risen, 'two years ago at the most'—they came to Jerusalem. And on learning by inquiry that Christ must be born in Bethlehem, these same magi left again with the star guiding them, and came from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. And they went in and found him with his mother Mary, and fell down and worshiped him and offered their gifts.

Continuing with Jesus' placement with respect to Herod, part 20 is devoted to refuting Herodians, who believed that Herod was the Christ. After giving some interesting tidbits in the prolog (Epiphanius alludes to his theory of the division of Herod's crown from the actual Davidic legacy), Epiphanius in a seperate subpart called "On Incarnation" recites his historical understanding.

1: 1 Right on their heels came the arrival in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, which overtook these seven sects at Jerusalem; his power extinguished and scattered them. But then, after his sojourn, all of the later sects arose. I mean they arose after Mary had been given the good tidings at Nazareth by Gabriel and in a word, after the Lord’s entire sojourn in the flesh—or in other words, after his ascension.

The Herodian is the seventh sect (20.1: 1 in the prolog of the part). Jesus comes after the sect. Reading on, we come to the dead mouse on the kitchen floor,

2: 1 The Saviour was born at Bethlehem of Judea in the thirty-third year of Herod,1 the forty-second of the Emperor Augustus. He went down into Egypt in the thirty-fifth year of Herod and returned from Egypt after Herod's death.

The remainder of "On Incarnation" relates Jesus' career and his apostolic successors' careers to other historical figures, all such observations placing Jesus after the turn of the Era, all consistent with the orthodox dating of Jesus.

RECAP Epiphanius taught, in and throughout his Panarion, that Jesus' infancy occurred during the reigns of Herod and Augustus, and that Jesus encountered Pilate later in his life.

-
All quotes from the Panarion in this post are from the Williams translation of Book 1, as presented at the link I gave earlier

http://www.masseiana.org/panarion_bk1.htm

 

[Craig B]

Craig

The passage you are looking for is, I think, in Book 2, part 66, section 20. However, you may have difficulty locating a freely readable web version of Williams' translation of Book 2, since it is not in the public domain.

Yes. Although some sources locate it in Book 1, I was quite unable to find it and, as you state, the other books are not in the public domain. So thanks!

The remainder of "On Incarnation" relates Jesus' career and his apostolic successors' careers to other historical figures, all such observations placing Jesus after the turn of the Era, all consistent with the orthodox dating of Jesus.

RECAP Epiphanius taught, in and throughout his Panarion, that Jesus' infancy occurred during the reigns of Herod and Augustus, and that Jesus encountered Pilate later in his lifehttp://www.masseiana.org/panarion_bk1.htm

I can see no reason to attribute any other doctrine to Epiphanius.

 

[HansMustermann]

A quote from Robert E. Howard's "Pilgrims To The Pecos" comes to mind for some reason:

"Now, me, I'm reasonable. When I'm wrong, I admit it."

"You ain't never admitted it so far," says I.

"I ain't never been wrong yet!" he roared. "And I'll kyarve the gizzard of the buzzard which says I am!"​

Well, now more seriously, yeah, it does seem to be the case that the good Bishop's handwaving about the change in Alexander's time was just illogical nonsense, he DOES leave a gap there that invalidates the whole argument, and there was no reason to take it to any logical conclusion. In retrospect, after some more eyeballing of 29, and seeing him pull out of the butt such nonsense as Jesus being some kind of high priest and allowed to wear high priest paraphernalia, I'm not sure any more why I expected him to have a coherent point there.

 

[Kirk]

So, I haven't actually kept up with everything here but I do have a question:

Is there any historical record of Christ that dates back earlier than the New Testament that historians tend to agree on (date and authenticity wise)?

 

[eight bits]

Hans, I thank you for that wrap-up of the Epiphanius situation.

Craig, my thanks to you for pointing out the right direction for the evidentiary case to thank, and I appreciate your other contributions as well.

While I am here, Kirk

Is there any historical record of Christ that dates back earlier than the New Testament that historians tend to agree on (date and authenticity wise)?

No. That's what makes all this so interesting to discuss .

 

[maximara]

Yeah, it is a drag when you get caught making an absurd claim with nothing to back it up. But I'll bet you get that a lot.

"More astonishing still is the widespread Jewish and Jewish-Christian tradition, attested in Epiphanius, the Talmud, and the Toledoth Jescji (dependent on second-century Jewish-Christian gospel), that Jesus was born about 100 BCE and was crucified under Alexander Jannaeus! " Price, Robert (2003) Incredible Shrinking Son of Man pg 40)

"Both of the passages from Epiphanius are highly significant in terms of placing the nativity of Jesus back in the days of Alexander Jannaeus and Alexandra-Salome..." (Thomas, Michael (2011) Jesus 100 B.C. - Page 78)

"Perahia's pupil, relying on the support of Epiphanius, who sets the birth of Jesus in the reign of Alexander (Jannaeus) and Alexandra, that is, in the time of Ben Perahia or Ben Tabai." (Efrón, Joshua (1987) Studies on the Hasmonean Period - Brill Academic Pub Page 158)

"For, Epiphanius in the fourth century actually traces the pedigree of his Jesus the Christ to Pandira, who was the father of that Jehoshua who lived and died at least a century too soon to be the Christ of our Canonical Gospels." (Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna (1960) Collected writings, Volume 8 Philosophical Research Society.

Furthermore, Mead's book is accepted as a valid reference in The Historical Jesus: Five Views a 2009 Christian work edited by James K. Beilby, Paul R. Eddy and printed by InterVarsity Press

This sampling shows clearly and expressly that Mead's "Nevertheless here we have the Bishop of Salamis categorically asserting, with detailed reiteration, so that there is no possibility of escape, that Jesus was born in the days of Alexander and Salina, that is of Jannai and Salome" is totally correct and event hose on the pro-Historical side accept this reading of the material so can we finally stop with the BS song and dance that Epiphanius is saying something else?

 

[maximara]

So, I haven't actually kept up with everything here but I do have a question:

Is there any historical record of Christ that dates back earlier than the New Testament that historians tend to agree on (date and authenticity wise)?

Considering there was no "New Testament" (ie the commonly accepted canon) before 331 these question is essentially meaningless as by that time there is documented evidence of sect putting Jesus' birth far earlier then what became canon. There are certainly a pro-Christ like figure (Teacher of Righteousness) in the Dead Sea scrolls but that is not the same as being Jesus himself.

Even within the canon sect you had historical nonsense such as St. Irenaeus' 50+ year old Jesus being crucified under Claudius Caesar (42 CE minimum) and that piece of idiocy was being cranked out c180 CE.

The reality is there is NOTHING that would qualify as provenancal valid evidence of the Gospel Jesus existing.

If anything, at best, the evidence points to the Gospel Jesus being a composite character formed out of various would be Messiahs and teachers given a biography that matched Paul's vague account while also making the figure seem recent.

King Arthur and Robin Hood are such composite characters and while we can find historical basis for them the version we know simply didn't exist. Remsburg IMHO said it best: "Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of humanity, the pathetic story of whose humble life and tragic death has awakened the sympathies of millions, is a possible character and may have existed; but the Jesus of Bethlehem, the Christ of Christianity, is an impossible character and does not exist."

The painful reality is we know NOTHING of Jesus of Nazareth--only of Jesus of Bethlehem. The gross historical and social-political impossibilities of the Gospels suggest the 2nd century equivalent of fanfiction.

esus of Nazareth has been so mythologized and long used to say other people's words and ideas that the man himself may be lost to the point it might as be if he had never existed.

 

[Janadele]

Jesus Christ was born on 6 April.

 

[HansMustermann]

To be honest, I'm not even convinced that it's a composite figure based on any actual messiah pretenders. Just about everything about Jesus is fulfiling some OT 'prophecy' (read: half-sentence taken out of context) or parallels to the OT or such.

Add some stuff which is clearly symbolic of some attribute of the expected Messiah or of divine power, and some stuff where they're putting in his mouth stuff relevant to their present day (e.g., the anti-pharisee rants and whatnot) and you have Jesus.

Matthew even beats the reader upside the head with what paragraph he's 'fulfiling'. He's inventing a trip to Egypt and back to 'fulfil' some verse from exodus. He's inventing a slaughter of innocents to 'fulfil' something else. He's making Mary a virgin to 'fulfil' a mis-translation to Greek. He's making Jesus ride two donkeys like a circus clown to 'fulfil' another mis-translation. Etc.

Not that the others are better. Mark for example is more skilled but essentially is doing the same thing. You can tell for example that the episode with that physically impossible storm of that magnitude on that little lake in a valley, is Jonah with a twist. Luke seems to include stuff from Josephus too as inspiration.

And not only that, but we're dealing with:

A) a continuation of several sects' tradition to do so as a prophecy of the Messiah, long before there were a Jesus. Seen even in the DSS.

B) a rabidly anti-intellectual new sect (Christianity), which over the next few centuries produced quite a lot of drivel as to why you really don't need to know or study anything else than the Bible, and why philosophy or science are at most good for debating philosophers. I don't think they treated history any better, except for looking for setups for their fiction.

But anyway, once you have the mind-set that what really counts about Jesus are cryptic phrases in the OT foretelling him -- and indeed for Paul it seems to be that the OT is THE source for Jesus and his sect, and if it's said so in the scripture (OT), then Jesus did it -- then you already have the bits and pieces to make a Jesus out of. And again, it's not just something nice to have, to flesh out a character, but from Paul to this day it's important that he be foretold by the OT. Those are the important parts. Bits that are just taken from RL characters are not. So once you have that frame of mind, you don't need to borrow anything from any other messianic pretender, when you have a whole big tome of Lego pieces to build a Messiah out of

You could do the same from any book, without needing any data about a real person. E.g., you could take Lovecraft's works and do the same. E.g., my Messiah will be someone who'll be first accepted by the locals, but then the whole town turns on him, because it is 'foretold' so in the plot of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. He'll have a cat for a familiar, for it is said, "he sat playing with his graceful kitten" in The Cats Of Ulthuar. He'll come from North End, for it is written, "The place for an artist to live is the North End" in Pickman's Model. He shall descend to the underworld realm of death, for it is foretold so in The Rats In The Walls. He shall be a great scholar, for it is said he "was widely known as an authority on ancient inscriptions, and had frequently been resorted to by the heads of prominent museums" in our most holy of scriptures, The Call Of Cthulhu. Etc.

I could keep at that long enough and have enough bits to make a Messiah out of without any real person being involved. You just need to be schizophrenic enough -- or force yourself to think like someone with actual delusions of reference -- to find all the material you want in bits and fragments of text about other people, and chip in totally WTH interpretations that the voices in your head... err... the Holy Spirit told you to.

And make no mistake, the fragments I quoted above, are no more out of context or WTH than the ones used by Matthew or by apologists to this day.

Don't get me wrong, maybe there was a Jesus Of Bethlehem, as you call it. Or maybe there wasn't. But far from adding more stuff from other real people, they replaced even whatever might have been known about that one real person with fiction based on the OT and such. His birth, his teachings, his ministry, his deeds, his trials, his execution, and pretty much any other detail have been chucked out and replaced with stuff that 'fulfils' scripture. That's not even making a composite figure out of actual people, but replacing a real person with a fictive Frankenstein-like construct that has as good as no real people parts.

 

[eight bits]

max

This sampling shows clearly and expressly that Mead's "Nevertheless here we have the Bishop of Salamis categorically asserting, with detailed reiteration, so that there is no possibility of escape, that Jesus was born in the days of Alexander and Salina, that is of Jannai and Salome" is totally correct and event hose on the pro-Historical side accept this reading of the material so can we finally stop with the BS song and dance that Epiphanius is saying something else?

Believe whatever you like. Characterize arguments you dislike however you wish.

Nevertheless, the black-letter fact is as follows.

20.2: 1 The Saviour was born at Bethlehem of Judea in the thirty-third year of Herod,1 the forty-second of the Emperor Augustus. He went down into Egypt in the thirty-fifth year of Herod and returned from Egypt after Herod's death.

That is what appears in his Panarion. That's what Epiphanius taught. Epiphanius did not write differently in section 29, but rather he wrote something that becomes grammatically unclear when it is removed from the sentence in which it appears. That is all.

 

[Craig B]

Jesus Christ was born on 6 April.

First day of the UK tax year. So why not? Good a date as any.

 

[rcfieldz]

hmm...

Just ask Whitney...

 

[llwyd]

Yeah, it is the current scholarly consensus that there probably was a person, a charismatic preacher, who had a cult following, so to speak - the stories about him were greatly embellished, but I'm sure he produced a miracle or two in his time, if he really existed. So far, there has not been a credible academic challenge to this view (and, no, internet forums don't qualify), but maybe we will have new materials or new interpretations to change this consensus that there really was a historical figure behind the myth.

As a lay person, it certainly makes more Occamist sense that there was someone there - a totally invented carpenter's son seems like a way too good a target to rival groups (People's Messianic League of Palestine etc.) And the real experts seem to agree. (Of course the Mormons did it too, so it's not impossible, but so far this explanation has not found many - or almost any - credible supporters.)

 

[davefoc]

Yeah, it is the current scholarly consensus that there probably was a person, a charismatic preacher, who had a cult following, so to speak - the stories about him were greatly embellished, but I'm sure he produced a miracle or two in his time, if he really existed. So far, there has not been a credible academic challenge to this view (and, no, internet forums don't qualify), but maybe we will have new materials or new interpretations to change this consensus that there really was a historical figure behind the myth.

As a lay person, it certainly makes more Occamist sense that there was someone there - a totally invented carpenter's son seems like a way too good a target to rival groups (People's Messianic League of Palestine etc.) And the real experts seem to agree. (Of course the Mormons did it too, so it's not impossible, but so far this explanation has not found many - or almost any - credible supporters.)

FWIW, I am in the group that thinks that an HJ probably existed but the two arguments you put forth here are weaker than it might seem.

1. Scholarly consensus
On most issues the scholarly consensus is a reasonable default position. If people have spent a lot of time studying something they probably know what they are talking about. On the issue of an HJ there are difficulties with the scholarly consensus argument.

How many of the scholars in this consensus are religious and have a significant bias for the existence of an HJ? It is reasonable to discount the significance of their beliefs on this issue, it would be expected regardless of the evidence for an HJ that they would believe in the existence of the HJ. But what of the rest? Many of these scholars make their living writing about the nature of an HJ. Is it reasonable to expect people whose livelihood depends on something to question its existence in a completely objective way? I don't think so. But the most questionable aspect of this consensus is what do these scholars agree on about an HJ? Not very much except that an HJ existed. That alone suggests that the evidence for an HJ is not as strong as it might seem. The evidence about the HJ is so weak that the scholars can't agree on much about him but they agree he existed? So we don't know when he was born, what he believed, when he was killed, what was the reason he was killed, how long he preached, how old he was when he died, etc, but the scholars are sure this guy existed?

2. Occam's razor
This is probably the main reason most secular people believe that the HJ existed, but the argument is weaker than it seems. The group that Christianity would arose out of already existed before the hypothetical birth of an HJ. The were gentiles who followed some aspects of Judaism and that used the Septuagint as their principal religious text. They are both referenced by Josephus and in the NT. There is strong evidence that the coming of a messiah was an aspect of their religion and eventually the belief in the coming of a messiah could have morphed into a belief that a messiah had come. The Occam's razor argument for this possibility is similar to the one that an actual HJ existed that provided a seed for creation of modern Christian beliefs so Occam's razor doesn't offer much guidance here on the issue of the existence of an HJ.

The writings that arose out of this group are about a messiah that was separated from them by language, culture, time and distance. How credible is what they had to say about this messiah? Given the various inconsistencies with each other and historical and geographical facts they clearly are not credible on a great many things. Using the writings of these folks as evidence for an HJ requires that one tease out a few things that seem plausible from a great deal that is either implausible or wrong. The reliability of evidence gained with such an approach is at best questionable.

 

[HansMustermann]

Actually, the Occam argument is pretty much mis-used, and strangely enough (at least in the West) ONLY about Jesus. For a start Occam says nothing about plausibility or meta-complexity (like why would they lie?) and so on.

It just says don't multiply ENTITIES, unless, of course, you have some data that just isn't explained by the simpler version. E.g., between

A) I probably forgot I drunk an extra can of beer on weekend, and

B) I have an invisible gnome in my fridge drinking my beer,

if all else is equal, I should go with A even just because it has one less entity: the gnome. Considerations like why would I forget drinking beer, or that it's totally implausible to me that I could possibly have a drinking problem, don't even enter the equation. Unless I have data that can only be explained by the version with a gnome, the Occam conform version is the one without the gnome.

And this is easy to recognize for other religions. I think every non-Mormon would agree that between

A) there actually was an ancient tribe of Christians in America and they actually wrote the tablets that Joseph Smith translated, and

B) Joseph Smith made it up,

version A has a lot more entities, and no evidence that needs such entities to explain, then B is the Occam conform one. Or between,

A) An archangel dictated the word of God to Muhammad (PBUH and all that), and

B) He made it up or hallucinated it,

all things being equal, version A has an extra archangel and a god, so B is the Occam conform one.

And it seems to me like the same should apply to Jesus too. If everything is explained by just BELIEF in a Jesus -- and none of the people in the whole NT have ever met Jesus, they just believe what they've been told -- then the version without a HJ is just as plausible, and Occam says: go with the one with one less entity.

And if things aren't that equal, then there is no reason for Occam to even enter the equation, so its being brought up is still wrong, just in a different way.

But what kinda irks me by now is this pretense some people do that the HJ version with clearly more entities is the Occam-conform, and that REMOVING those entities is somehow equalling multiplying them in some unexplained way. It's like religion does give people brain damage.

The HJ version doesn't just have an extra Jesus, but for every single detail about him that is supposedly in the gospels, one needs a chain of information. You need some guy X who saw Jesus doing or saying something, then X told it to Y, then Y told it to Z, then Z told it to Mark. That's what "oral tradition" means. If you lack even a single link in that chain, then it's not a detail taken from a historical Jesus any more, but some detail that's made up. Maybe not by Mark, but by Z, or Y or whatever, but it's still something that has no chain of information all the way back to the real Jesus. And you need the events where they met each other and actually transmitted that information.

So now you don't just need the HJ entity to make it work, but for every single detail about him, you have those entities X, Y and Z involved in transmitting that information.

Even if one wants to believe there was just the link Peter between Jesus and Mark, although only the most idiot of apologists still believe that Peter actually dictated the gospel to Mark (then we'd have Peter who knows nothing about the region or its customs, so that's not a first hand apostle), then, you know, we need at least that link as extra entity. But if you believe it was a long chain doing an oral tradition, like Ehrman thinks, then you have a LOT of those entities forming that chain of information. You're not just assuming one extra person, you're assuming a dozen or two extra persons.

Multiply that by, say, about half the details you want to take about Jesus (some people would tell 2-3 stories of Jesus, but a lot of those traditions seem to come through different paths; e.g., Q has a different flavour than Mark) and the HJ version has A LOT more entities that it needs to explain the same thing.

Now don't get me wrong, one could argue that there are some things that the MJ version doesn't explain. But then things aren't equal, and Occam has no business saying anything there. But conversely, if one thought that Occam has any business being invoked, then it seems to me like pure nonsense for anyone to argue that up is down, black is white, and the version with the ton of extra entities somehow has less entities than the one without them.