As to Tsar Nicholas II being a problem for Lord Raglan's profile as a test of historicity, it must be pointed out that he is *very* exceptional. I've scored several other notable heroes of the last few centuries, and they usually score *very* low. What Lord Raglan himself found I find also. George Washington (6), Napoleon (8), Abraham Lincoln (6), Charles Darwin (5), Winston Churchill (5), Adolf Hitler (4), John Fitzgerald Kennedy (7 or 8), Muammar Khadafy (5.5).
The Historical Jesus II
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JaysonR
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That means nothing to me, anymore than it means anything to me about Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John as textual cultures that the LDS consider them to be one unified culture along with the works of Joseph Smith.
Regardless of what some Christian sect holds, these texts are clearly not of the same culture.
True but a hypothesis stand or falls on the exceptional case not by those that fit it.
As I said before another example of the test failing would be heroes of fiction who score low. Take Sherlock Holmes for example. Even if we give 1 point for number 2 (based on one line in one story) and counting Moriarty as a dragon Holmes comes in at a 9 well below Augustus Caesar and that is really pushing things for Holmes.
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Gish gallop? Really?
Takes a look at item 11. Really? Huh, as far as I can tell tacitus only mentioned Pilate once.
I look forward to your citation supporting this specific claim in your next post.
Actually it is not clear. There was and still is a lot of variance in John Frum and he came from the same "culture".
Of course in anthropological circles "culture" has lost all non contextual meaning. You can read about English "culture" as if the United States, Canada, UK, and Australia are one unified group and then the very next paragraph treats them as separate cultures.
We talk about Christianity as if it was one "culture" but everything points to that never being true.
JaysonR
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It is very clear if we look beyond the top layer of English translation and only look at the texts as a means telling us what they can about "Jesus".
Matthew is a vast cultural difference from John, and John is markedly different from Mark; Luke somewhat shares between them, but yet again stands apart in its cultural representation.
The only similarity in culture these texts have is their interest in the same story.
These text's variations of cultural value upon the same story is akin to tracking the tale of "Santa Claus" across Europe and North America.
Is there a shared culture of some fashion? Yes.
Does there lack a difference in those cultural views which then influence greatly the tales? No; there are vast differences in the tales due to cultural backgrounds.
If you can recognize that Christianity has never been one culture, then clearly you can understand that at its origin prior to an age where unification was an overt endeavor, the diversity of those cultures is even more pronounced than the age of Roman mandate and Orthodoxy.
I reiterate that if the tales are fictional, which is rather likely considering the composite possibility, then the scale is even of less value and aid, as if these are fictional tales, then our work has not been completed but instead is only then just beginning.
If the truth is that these are all of one unified and unbroken chain revolving around an actual historical individual, then we have very little left to understand and few questions to answer in diversity.
Yet, conversely, the compelling amount of material that we do have points to these tales having a very diverse demographic of adherence spread across a wide range of locations without much of a centralized means of ideology.
We are so terribly ignorant on early followings of these tales, all of them and not just the Orthodox selection.
We have very much more work to do to undo a damage that has been culturally caused rather intentionally and loudly by the Orthodox and Roman mandates.
Entire groups and ways of ontological life were wiped out.
No scale helps understand or value this.
Matthew is a vast cultural difference from John, and John is markedly different from Mark; Luke somewhat shares between them, but yet again stands apart in its cultural representation.
The only similarity in culture these texts have is their interest in the same story.
These text's variations of cultural value upon the same story is akin to tracking the tale of "Santa Claus" across Europe and North America.
Is there a shared culture of some fashion? Yes.
Does there lack a difference in those cultural views which then influence greatly the tales? No; there are vast differences in the tales due to cultural backgrounds.
If you can recognize that Christianity has never been one culture, then clearly you can understand that at its origin prior to an age where unification was an overt endeavor, the diversity of those cultures is even more pronounced than the age of Roman mandate and Orthodoxy.
I reiterate that if the tales are fictional, which is rather likely considering the composite possibility, then the scale is even of less value and aid, as if these are fictional tales, then our work has not been completed but instead is only then just beginning.
If the truth is that these are all of one unified and unbroken chain revolving around an actual historical individual, then we have very little left to understand and few questions to answer in diversity.
Yet, conversely, the compelling amount of material that we do have points to these tales having a very diverse demographic of adherence spread across a wide range of locations without much of a centralized means of ideology.
We are so terribly ignorant on early followings of these tales, all of them and not just the Orthodox selection.
We have very much more work to do to undo a damage that has been culturally caused rather intentionally and loudly by the Orthodox and Roman mandates.
Entire groups and ways of ontological life were wiped out.
No scale helps understand or value this.
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Again you are using "Culture" without context. No one here knows if in cultunit terms you are talking about a Hopi, Flathead, Aztec, Tarascan type. If you have no idea what those even are I suggest reading Naroll, Raoul. On Ethnic Unit Classification with CA Comment. Current Anthropology October, 1964 Vol.5(4):283-312
For the rest of you the United States would fall into the Aztec type while Europe would fall into the Tarascan type.
And by now nearly all of you are going 'uhhh what is he talking about?' but that proves my point: culture by itself had no meaning in 1964 to the point the idea of a whole new term was being kicked around.
Never mind different authors from the same "culture" can bring their own take on a work. Just look at at the "Daleks" against Dr. Who and the Daleks; same exact story (more or less) made by people of the same culture but the differences...gads where to begin. Much the same is true of "The Dalek Invasion of Earth" and Daleks – Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.
Heck the very same author can produce vastly different results--compare Roddenberry's Genesis II (1972) and his Planet Earth (1974) pilots for example.
Culture is not the only explanation for the differences in the synoptic gospels but it does explain the differences between them and John.
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JaysonR
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For example of the cultural difference that I am referring to, so that context is understood, I am talking of the differences between Anatolia, Antioch, Judea, Alexandria and Athens.
To a point, I could even split the culture of Judea into Galilee, Samaria and Judah and have recognizable differences in their approaches to a narrative form and symbolic values.
But, for the point in case here, the previous list is the general differences as an example of what kinds of cultural differences we are discussing.
Which you appear to already recognize as you state:
If John is explained by a cultural difference, then it is not much more to recognize the differences in societal views and values present in differences between the other three.
Note that these texts were never intended to be bundled together as a collective; they represent independent endeavors with separate motives.
It was a different society at a different time that elected to bundle them together by really nothing more than logical test.
In any event, you yourself don't know which culture they are from and is only speculating.
You have no idea who the authors were, when they wrote and the culture in which they wrote.
The Canonised Gospels, especially the Synoptics, do show evidence of copying from a single source or similar sources.
A close examination of the NT would show that gMark is the ONLY story of Jesus the Son of God that is fundamentally attested by other authors from the Baptism to the Empty Tomb Resurrection.
It is clear that the authors of the Canonised Gospels used the Septuagint, the writings of Josephus and other events in Roman/Greek Mythology to assemble their Fable of the Son of God regardless of culture.
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proudfootz
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I'm skeptical there are any 'authentic sayings' of the Jesus figure.
Perhaps this is down to the notion that Jesus had no authority until after he rose from the dead, so no reason for anyone to regard him as a teacher or his teachings worthy of remembrance.
proudfootz
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The Raglan Hero Pattern can be used in conjunction with other evidence - thus even if a figure of literature appears to conform to the profile of a mythical hero other data can counter-balance that.
"But yes, indeed, even a low prior can be overwhelmed by evidence (I give an example in OHJ, pp. 252-53: even if Julius Caesar maxed out the Rank-Raglan scale, the evidence for him is vast, and would hugely overwhelm even a 6% prior). So they shouldn’t be afraid of low priors. They should be afraid of low likelihood ratios. But that requires actually understanding Bayesian logic.
Your insight is correct: the evidence for Jesus is so poor that a low prior becomes terrifying; whereas if we had good evidence for Jesus, a low prior wouldn’t worry anyone."
(From comments on Richard Carrier's notes on book review:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/5845 )
pakeha
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As do I.
Pliny the Elder was an eyewitness to the events in 64 and it beggars belief he'd pass over such a spectacular gesture. It also beggars belief to imagine that if he'd mentioned Christians being involved in the aftermath his devoted nephew wouldn't know it. The fact is his nephew, Pliny the Younger, in 110, was utterly ignorant of Christians and their beliefs.
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pakeha
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Thanks for such a detailed reply.
I've bookmarked it for future reference.
Still, my point remains- the early church spent a great deal of time and energy controlling and even denying the individual access to personal moral authority.
He is the author of Forgery In Christianity (1930)
Wheless did the same thing.
"The 27 New Testament booklets, attributed to eight individual "Apostolic" writers, and culled from some 200 admitted forgeries called Gospels, Acts, and Epistles, constitute the presient "Canonical" or acceptedly inspired compendium of the primitive history of Christianity."
And even he didn't go as far as to say Tacitus had been tampered with.
As Carrier points out even assuming Tacitus is genuine doesn't help the historical Jesus case as thanks to two fires in Rome itself odds are Tacitus had NO official documents to work with and wouldn't have bothered looking in what was left for an obscure crucifixion in Judea; therefore odds are Tacitus got his information from Christians via Pliny the Younger. Carrier even suggests that Christians may have been Chrestians the Jewish rioters who caused problems under Claudius (OHJ pg 342-349)
As I said one does NOT need some elaborate illuminati level conspiracy to create Jesus. Rather what we see can be explained by the Cargo Cults and urban legend with a little tampering to make things fit.
Having Paul in the 50s doesn't help the Historical Jesus case nor does having Mark in the 70s. Heck even if Testimonium Flavianum was totally genuine it would NOT help the case and we KNOW that thing is in part or entirety a fake. And that is the best arrow the Historical Jesus crowd had in their quiver
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Bayesian reasoning using a Lord Raglan score would work something like this.
Consider hypothesis X related to score S for heroes who are either real or mythical.
P(X if S) = P(S if X) * P(X) / P(S)
P(S) is a normalization factor, found by summing P(X if S) over all X's.
P(X) is the prior probability of X.
P(S if X) = N(X,S)/N(X,total) for heroes who are X and who have score S
So if a few real heroes score high or a few legendary heroes score low, then that will not change the overall results very much. The total number of each sort of hero drops out, though it will affect the statistical quality of the probability.
Let's imagine these probabilities:
1 real hero scoring at least 12, 99 scoring less
P(S>=12 if real) = 0.01
P(S<12 if real) = 0.99
1 mythical hero scoring less than 12, 9 scoring at least as much
P(S>=12 if mythical) = 0.9
P(S<12 if mythical) = 0.1
Thus,
P(mythical if S >= 12) / P(real if S >= 12) = 90 * P(mythical)/P(real)
P(real if S < 12) / P(mythical if S < 12) = 9.9 * P(real)/P(mythical)
Unless P(mythical) <~ 0.01, P(mythical if S >= 12) ~ 0.01
Consider hypothesis X related to score S for heroes who are either real or mythical.
P(X if S) = P(S if X) * P(X) / P(S)
P(S) is a normalization factor, found by summing P(X if S) over all X's.
P(X) is the prior probability of X.
P(S if X) = N(X,S)/N(X,total) for heroes who are X and who have score S
So if a few real heroes score high or a few legendary heroes score low, then that will not change the overall results very much. The total number of each sort of hero drops out, though it will affect the statistical quality of the probability.
Let's imagine these probabilities:
1 real hero scoring at least 12, 99 scoring less
P(S>=12 if real) = 0.01
P(S<12 if real) = 0.99
1 mythical hero scoring less than 12, 9 scoring at least as much
P(S>=12 if mythical) = 0.9
P(S<12 if mythical) = 0.1
Thus,
P(mythical if S >= 12) / P(real if S >= 12) = 90 * P(mythical)/P(real)
P(real if S < 12) / P(mythical if S < 12) = 9.9 * P(real)/P(mythical)
Unless P(mythical) <~ 0.01, P(mythical if S >= 12) ~ 0.01
pakeha
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That, and the criterion of embarrassment.
JaysonR
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Your welcome, and absolutely!
That event is a huge alarm that aids in informing us of just how diverse things were previously, and the amount of effort and the years upon years involved in formalizing the religion in extended battles of debates and factions (not to mention political gambits) further illuminates how any item on that table being debated was clearly not uniformly agreed upon prior to the ideological war's conclusion.
The main battlefield of this war was the divinity of Jesus and the relationship of the adherent to the divine in general.
Neither of these concepts were uniform early on, and multiple campaigns ran during the ideological war, each vying for their version (and these groups were just the largest successful groups of that time; not even representative of smaller groups).
In a way, looking at this span is conceptually similar to looking at America's political parties today by comparison to the political ideologies during the colonial era before it declared independence.
Do the political parties a few hundred years following represent the ideologies of the colonial age?
Very loosely, but not at all exhaustively.
At first there was an entire lack of any large cohesive "party", instead with several ideologies being spread about by pamphlets town to town and city to city, mostly within a small geographic region of the North East, and a lesser extent in the South East.
After the calamity of the Revolutionary war, some of these ideologies surfaced for their chance of fruition and while many ideologies took hold in small clusters in their local region, only a smaller portion took root widely enough to become in demand of a representative party in a larger scale.
Even on that larger scale, however, it would be over time that only a very small few ideologies would survive into today's political theater.
In similar fashion, you can see the political parties of America today as the Orthodoxies of the 3rd and 4th centuries, and the widely diverse and non-unified ideologies of the colonial age of America as somewhat similar to the early groupings and adherence of Christian ideologies; thereby drawing a comparison along the way between the various stages and funneling that occurred in both timelines of social evolution.
So, was there a massive push to shape the dogma and creed?
Absolutely; even the Vatican cannot deny this.
They just hold that they were battling for the truth and warding off errant interpretations.
All of the Orthodoxies hold this position, however; this is hardly unique to the Vatican.
The greatest myth regarding Christianity isn't Jesus; it's that it was ever once unified on what Jesus was and what one's relation to the Divine was.
At it's most unified and controlled, even then Christianity was divided - almost violently - over these matters.
You remark quite rightly upon the very strong push for proxy by Jesus over individual moral authority - quite so.
This is one of those concepts that is reasoned out very early on through 'right' interpretation.
Several 'Gnostic' interpretations (not all) would hold just the opposite and claim that each individual must discern the secret of the divine for themselves; not through proxy.
The 'Ebionites' didn't even bother with either viewpoint, appearing to hold that one is responsible for a right way of living and judging and calling it done at this; Jesus, it appears, to them was not divine at all, nor mystical.
If we have such a wide range between the 'Ebionite', the 'Gnostic' and the Johanist concept of Jesus and one's relation to the divine, imagine how many other variations we are missing!
So when I state that the remarkable aspect in these texts is the individual moral authority tangent that permeates almost every page, note that this does not mean that this is a Christian creation - instead, it is a marking of province and social struggles of the time which lent themselves philosophically into the narrative in much the same way as we note that many 1960's American social movement philosophies made their ways into literature and film of the era, yet we do not so readily claim that one specific author or director invented a specific philosophy in that social movement.
Constantine's concern was not more than the ordering and preservation of his understanding of social integrity, which included a unified social order of belief.
It is no curious event, then, that he favored the hierarchical structure over non-hierarchical structures.
The oddest irony of Christian history is its marriage to the Roman state, for never has it likely been that such a message in text was so completely counter to the application upon society.
Just about every aspect of Constantinianism is incompatible with the sayings and parables attributed to the figure of Jesus found in at least the Synoptic Gospels.
- People are forced to adherence; they do not follow by will.
- Major religious holidays are public spectacles, not private prayers in piety.
- Clergy are lavishly provided for and their representation increased in glamour and wealth, rather than retaining the lowest of materials possible and providing the resources to those in need.
- The Law is absolute without subjective application (e.g. Jesus healing on the Sabbath is no longer an example for the individual, but now reasoned as a representation of Jesus - as God - changing the rules of Sabbath - not making a point about essence and compassion over pedantic application of Law).
- Execution or violence for Heresy was not just alright; it was theologically defended and advocated - no longer was the ideology to replace the ear and put away the sword or forgive those who beat and taunt you, now it was more Revelation and spiritual warfare...in a rather physical approach.
The list continues, but it is one of the queerest of marriages in ideological history.
In all other times previous, a religious ideology was just simply reshaped and the texts re-written and other texts wiped out when a ruler wanted to establish a new theocratic order, or they declared themselves some diviner of the gods or a god themselves and declared a new theocratic array of edicts and ideologies.
In this case, however, we have a ruler wanting to do the same, but elects to do so with an already extant set of ideologies which have some popularity but not a huge amount of popularity over all; ideologies that do not apply to the ideals of his envisioned order of society.
It's like standing in a room where Kim Jong Un leaps out wearing a pair of Kate Moss' pants and you don't really have much of an option, really, but to say, "Oohhh...yeah, looks...great...um...on you. You...completely fit into those pants...
... wait...is that her G-string too?" 
By comparison, all other such theocratic mass-edicts previously anywhere near flight range of the region basically just shot Kate Moss, burned her pants and G-string, put a gun to the head of the tailor and demanded a new outfit, and declared "skinny" a crime punishable by death.
Also;
Slight comment on the criterion of embarrassment.
I don't find this to be a very good criterion.
For starters, it requires that we identify what is embarrassing, and second it requires that the writers value non-embarrassing heroes over embarrassed heroes.
Here's an example of the problem here.
Take the crucifixion.
Generally considered to have actually happened by criterion of embarrassment.
However, the Hebrew bible is almost entirely absent of a single hero who isn't embarrassed in terrible manners.
Take Moses, for example. Moses is denied access to the Holy Land for performing an incantation incorrectly and showboating a bit.
David commits adultery and designed a husband's murder so to have the wife.
Those are just two, of scores, of examples out of the Hebrew bible.
My main point here is that IF these texts were written by Hebrew hands, then that culture wouldn't hold back on annotating crucifixion - even in fiction.
Now, let's take the criterion of embarrassment for a spin on Moses for a moment...
It's embarrassing, considerably, for Moses to have done that incantation in manners counter to their god's command - specifically because it's Moses; the principle voice of their god to the people.
Does this then mean that the incantation is an historical event?
I sure hope that's not our reasoning, as that is incredibly unlikely sequence of events.
The second point is that IF these texts were not written by Hebrew hands, then they were designed after the Diaspora and outside of Judea (which is already likely to begin with), which means that they are PERIOD PIECE literature even IF based on any real individuals.
As such, it would mean that including the Crucifixion would not be embarrassing; it would be hallmarking and iconic.
Then there is the third point; the narrative element to the Crucifixion.
I've mentioned this one already, but substitute ANY other death of the time in and the story falls entirely flat on its face as a dramatic story.
The Crucifixion is not embarrassing as a narrative element any more-so than Rocky being punched to near death endlessly and painting the floor with his face is "embarrassing".
From a narrative perspective, the Crucifixion is a tear jerking section of endurance and passion.
The MORE Jesus suffers, the MORE people are connected to the character.
If someone had just walked up and stoned him to death like every normal religious violation, then no one has any emotional connection at all - he doesn't endure anything...Rocky is just punched out cold in the first 30 seconds and we're done.
Awww, poor Rocky - oh well, too bad.
So, I don't think "embarrassment" is very helpful.
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proudfootz
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No, holding one's breath can be dangerous!
I don't think # 11 on the list is saying what you seem to imagine it is saying.
Clearly Pilate is portrayed by contemporary historians as ready to put down riots with violence, killing many:
http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate05.html
Pilate was also willing to call out soldiers to put an end to hijinks by religious fanatics:
http://www.livius.org/pi-pm/pilate/pilate07.html
Please do not deprive your brain of needed oxygen any longer!
Again, since 1902 it was found out that the existing copy of Tacitus' Annals 15.44 was tampered with.
It is virtually impossible for me to argue that Tacitus Annals' 15,44 is authentic based on the existing evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus_on_Christ#Specific_references
maximara said:
Virtually all apologetic writers in and out the Canon claimed the Jews Killed Jesus the Son of God.
The existing evidence adds up. The Jesus story and cult began after the Fall of the Temple c 70 CE. People who believe the Jews KILLED Jesus the son of God were called Christians.
This is a partial list of the Christian writers who believed the Jews Killed the Son of their own God:
1. Aristides.
2. Justin Martyr.
3. Irenaeus.
4. Tertullian.
5. Hippolytus.
6. Origen.
7. Lactantius.
8. The author of Acts.
9. The Pauline writers.
10. Optatus
11. Eusebius.
12. Jerome.
13. Chrysostom.
14. Ambrose.
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