The Historical Jesus II

[maximara]

A source can be partially true and partially false. One can start with a manuscript and point out which parts one thinks are accurate and which parts one thinks are inaccurate, without being "logically fallacious."

For what it's worth, I don't think there's enough evidence to prove conclusively that a real 1st century preacher wasn't the kernel of truth behind all the Jesus myths. There might have been one, or the stories might have all been fiction based on what was generally happening at the time, or at the time they were written down. I don't know if there's ever going to be enough evidence to know for sure.

But rejecting the Bible as evidence, when the question is "Was there a historical Jesus?" seems like rejecting the Sherlock Holmes stories when the question is "Was there a historical Sherlock Holmes?" It's the canon you have to start from, or else the question is meaningless. Without the Bible, we wouldn't even care whether there was an apocalyptic preacher circa 30 A.D. who had myths added to him.

There are several problems with the Jesus to Sherlock Holmes comparison:

First, we know that Sherlock Holmes was based on at least two real people: Joseph Bell and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

Second, thanks to the printing press the time Sherlock Holmes was supposedly in practice (1888-1917) is far better recorded then could be hoped for the time of Jesus.

Finally, with Holmes there is "The Game" where people try to put Holmes' case in a historical framework and the results are all over the map.

 

[IanS]

A source can be partially true and partially false. One can start with a manuscript and point out which parts one thinks are accurate and which parts one thinks are inaccurate, without being "logically fallacious."

For what it's worth, I don't think there's enough evidence to prove conclusively that a real 1st century preacher wasn't the kernel of truth behind all the Jesus myths. There might have been one, or the stories might have all been fiction based on what was generally happening at the time, or at the time they were written down. I don't know if there's ever going to be enough evidence to know for sure.

But rejecting the Bible as evidence, when the question is "Was there a historical Jesus?" seems like rejecting the Sherlock Holmes stories when the question is "Was there a historical Sherlock Holmes?" It's the canon you have to start from, or else the question is meaningless. Without the Bible, we wouldn't even care whether there was an apocalyptic preacher circa 30 A.D. who had myths added to him.

The problem with the bible as evidence of Jesus, is that the whole thing is completely discredited as a reliable source, because it reports as "fact" so much that has turned out to be fiction.

The accounts of Jesus are accounts of miracles at almost every turn. When the bible was written, and in fact up until about 150-200 years ago, almost everyone thought that the miracles were literally true. But since then, most educated people have understood from modern science, that those miracle accounts are in fact all untrue - the Jesus stories of the bible are certainly filled with fiction at almost every mention of him.

Afaik, that is not the case with the stories of Sherlock Holmes, is it? Those stories are mostly not claims of the constantly supernatural are they?

Also afaik, the Sherlock Holmes stories were written by a known author, and were not at the time presented as fact, were they? Whereas the biblical gospels are all written by unknown authors ... anonymous people who had never met Jesus, but who nevertheless claimed to know his stories so well as to report verbatim word-for-word exactly what he said whilst in the act of performing an endless series of impossible acts.

Jesus might have been a real person. And there might have once been some good factual evidence of his existence. But it needs better evidence that the completely unreliable and obviously fictional writing of anonymous authored gospels.

 

[Craig B]

Why have you invented an historical Jesus when it was NOT needed?

After all the very God of the Jews was NOT a figure of history.

Jews didn't believe Jesus to be God. Jesus' disciples did not believe him to be God.

Jews have no history of worshiping men as Gods.

Jews have no history of worshipping Jesus as God.

The DSS does not mention Jesus of Nazareth.

Don't tell me you're now citing "DSS" as a unitary source, along with the "Bible". The DSS documents are mostly older works.

It was blasphemy, a crime punishable by death, for a Jew to have declared himself a God.

Jesus didn't declare himself to be God, and in any case he was put to death.

And again, you write fiction.

The Pauline writers did NOT start a new religion. Pauline writers CLAIMED THAT THEY PERSECUTED THE FAITH and that there were CHURCHES and Apostles in CHRIST BEFORE THEM.

That's right. So there were. Followers of Jesus.

If you argue that there was an historical Jesus who was the founder of the NEW RELIGION THEN IT IS ILLOGICAL that Paul the PERSECUTOR started the same religion he persecuted.

Jesus was a Jew who founded no new religion.

2nd century or later ... 2nd century ... third century ... around the 4th century ...

Make up your mind!

 

[dejudge]

....Jesus might have been a real person. And there might have once been some good factual evidence of his existence. But it needs better evidence that the completely unreliable and obviously fictional writing of anonymous authored gospels.

Jesus of Nazareth in the NT was NOT a real person.

In fact, the birth and characteristics of Jesus are described in the NT and Christian writings of antiquity.

Jesus of Nazareth was born of a Ghost, was God Creator and was a Transfiguring Sea water walker.

The speculation that Jesus of Nazareth might have been a real person is really without evidence.

Examine a partial list of those who argued that Jesus was a Transfiguring Sea water walking God or born of a Ghost.

1. Ignatius claimed Jesus was God and born of a Ghost.

2. Aristides claimed Jesus was God from heaven.

3. Justin Martyr claimed Jesus was born WITHOUT sexual union.

4. Irenaeus claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

5. Tertullian claimed Jesus was born of a of a Ghost.

6. Origen claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

7. Hippolytus claimed Jesus was God Creator.

8. Eusebius claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

9. The author of gMark claimed Jesus was a Transfiguring Sea water walker.

10. The author of gMatthew claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

11. The author of gLuke claimed Jesus was born of a Ghost.

12. The author of gJohn claimed Jesus was God Creator.

13. The Pauline Corpus claims Jesus was the LORD from heaven and God Creator.

14. The author of Acts claimed Jesus was the Resurrected and Ascended Son of God.

15. The NICENE Creed states Jesus is GOD of GOD.

The speculation that Jesus in the NT might have been human is like speculating that George Washington might have really been Superman.

Let us deal with the evidence from antiquity.

1. Jesus of the NT was NOT human.

2. There are NO Pauline letters dated to c 50-60 CE.

3. There are NO manuscripts and Codices with stories of Jesus and Paul dated to c 50-60 CE,

4. The existing stories of Jesus and Paul in the existing 2nd century or later manuscripts are riddled with fiction, forgeries, false attribution, falsehood and monstrous fables.

5. No contemporary writer mentioned Jesus and Paul according to "Against the Galileans".

Jesus of Nazareth was a figure of mythology based on EXISTING evidence.

 

[dejudge]

Why have you invented an historical Jesus when it was NOT needed?

After all the very God of the Jews was NOT a figure of history.

Jews didn't believe Jesus to be God. Jesus' disciples did not believe him to be God.

Well, since you BELIEVE the Bible is an historical source then you write fiction. In the Bible, Paul the Hebrew of Hebrews who claimed he was a Jew believed Jesus was God.

:
Jews have no history of worshiping men as Gods.

Jews have no history of worshipping Jesus as God.

You repeat the same fiction. You believe the Bible is an historical source which claims Jews worshiped Jesus as God Creator or the Son of God.

The DSS does not mention Jesus of Nazareth.

Don't tell me you're now citing "DSS" as a unitary source, along with the "Bible". The DSS documents are mostly older works.

Your statement is void of logic. The DSS contains manuscripts dated to the 1st century which do not mention Jesus, Paul and the Apostle James.

It was blasphemy, a crime punishable by death, for a Jew to have declared himself a God.

Jesus didn't declare himself to be God, and in any case he was put to death.

Please, just go and get familiar with the stories of Jesus and stop writing fiction.

In the NT, Jesus was GOD'S BEGOTTEN SON--GOD of God.

In the NT, Jesus declared he and GOD were ONE.

John 10:30 --I and my Father are one.

The Pauline writers did NOT start a new religion. Pauline writers CLAIMED THAT THEY PERSECUTED THE FAITH and that there were CHURCHES and Apostles in CHRIST BEFORE THEM.

That's right. So there were. Followers of Jesus.

You wrte more fiction. You have completely forgotten that you have already admitted that you "don't believe that the Bible contains the history of any Jesus stated by Bible Paul".

Your Paul had AUDITORY hallucinations and had Conference without Flesh and blood.

Your Paul could "SEE" people without flesh and blood by AUDITORY hallucinations.

If you argue that there was an historical Jesus who was the founder of the NEW RELIGION THEN IT IS ILLOGICAL that Paul the PERSECUTOR started the same religion he persecuted.

Jesus was a Jew who founded no new religion.

Well, well, well!!!! You have confirmed that the Christus in Tacitus Annals 15.44 was NOT your HJ.

Christus in the existing Tacitus Annals suffered the ultimate penalty in order to stop the spread of a most mischievous superstition.

Tacitus' Annals 15.44

.......Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment...

The HJ argument is DEAD out of the Water.

Paul was an Auditory Hallucinator who "SAW" and "CONFERRED" with people WITHOUT Flesh and Blood and the "Christus" in Annals 15.44 was NOT HJ.

 

[Craig B]

There are NO Pauline letters dated to c 50-60 CE.

Internal evidence imposes such a dating. We've been over it. Reign of Aretas, King of the Nabateans. Existing Temple in Jerusalem. Governorship of Gallio in Achaea. These notices date the letters to that early time. We have no manuscripts from then, but that's most probably because Paul was unknown to all but a very few sectarians. The manuscripts date from the period of expansion of the church. The earliest complete NT dates not from the time the books were composed, but from the time when Christianity became the state religion, and the number of copies increased to meet the demand for them.

There are NO manuscripts and Codices with stories of Jesus and Paul dated to c 50-60 CE

Yes, you believe they were written on blank sheets of parchment hundreds of years later as a hoax. A bizarre notion. Who? How? Why? You have been asked, but you never respond, and you can't because your theory is completely crackers.

 

[Craig B]

You wrte more fiction. You have completely forgotten that you have already admitted that you "don't believe that the Bible contains the history of any Jesus stated by Bible Paul".

I stated that Paul noted the existence of

Followers of Jesus.

You think saying "followers of Jesus" is the same thing as writing a history of Jesus? I must suppose you never studied history at school, if that's what you think history is.

Your Paul could "SEE" people without flesh and blood by AUDITORY hallucinations.

No, he "heard" Jesus by auditory hallucinations. As far as we read, he only "saw" a light, not Jesus.

Well, well, well!!!! You have confirmed that the Christus in Tacitus Annals 15.44 was NOT your HJ.

Christus in the existing Tacitus Annals suffered the ultimate penalty in order to stop the spread of a most mischievous superstition.

So that can't be the Jesus who was executed 80 years before Tacitus wrote, because a later Roman author calls the early Christian movement a "mischievous superstition", and the NT writers didn't. They didn't say, "we believe in a mischievous superstition". No, they didn't, dejudge. You're right about that, at least. So it must be a different Jesus? Mmm. That's a really weird argument.

The HJ argument is DEAD out of the Water.

Please look at http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/dead+in+the+water

 

[IanS]

I stated that Paul noted the existence of

Followers of Jesus.

Where do Paul's letters ever say there were "followers of Jesus" before himself?

Can you quote from Paul’s letters where any of them say that?

 

[dejudge]

Internal evidence imposes such a dating. We've been over it. Reign of Aretas, King of the Nabateans. Existing Temple in Jerusalem. Governorship of Gallio in Achaea. These notices date the letters to that early time. We have no manuscripts from then, but that's most probably because Paul was unknown to all but a very few sectarians. The manuscripts date from the period of expansion of the church. The earliest complete NT dates not from the time the books were composed, but from the time when Christianity became the state religion, and the number of copies increased to meet the demand for them.

You write fiction. The earliest manuscripts of the Pauline Corpus are dated to c 175-225 CE.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...i#List_of_all_registered_New_Testament_papyri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus_46

In addition, the Pauline Corpus is not credible. You admit PAUL had Auditory hallucinations and may have been off his NUT in reality.

The Pauline writers had lots of problems with veracity.

There are NO manuscripts and Codices with stories of Jesus and Paul dated to c 50-60 CE

Yes, you believe they were written on blank sheets of parchment hundreds of years later as a hoax. A bizarre notion. Who? How? Why? You have been asked, but you never respond, and you can't because your theory is completely crackers...

Again, you write more fiction. I never said such things. Why can't you stop writing fiction?

It was PALEOGRAPHERS who have dated the Pauline Corpus [P 46] to c 175-225 CE.

There are NO Papyri of the Pauline Corpus dated to c 50-60 CE by Paleographers or by carbon dating.

You have been writing so much fiction that you now believe your own fiction is the truth.

Please tell us how, when and what your Paul [the Auditory Hallucinator] "SAW" after the CONFERENCE WITHOUT Flesh and Blood.

 

[Craig B]

You write fiction. The earliest manuscripts of the Pauline Corpus are dated to c 175-225 CE.

How can it be FICTION when I am AGREEING with you about the dating OF the manuscripts? Are you writing FICTION so when I agree I must be writing fiction TOO? Because I wrote

We have no manuscripts from then, but that's most probably because Paul was unknown to all but a very few sectarians. The manuscripts date from the period of expansion of the church.

So the manuscripts came later, like Caesar's Gallic War manuscript being from the ninth century. The wording of Caesar's work tells us it was earlier because he doesn't say, I am a Viking and I'm invading Britain along with Eirik Bloodaxe and Ragnar Hairybreeks.

In the same way, Paul talks about the Temple and King Aretas, which are not from the later time you suggest.

Remember, the earliest manuscript is unlikely to be the original composition. Did you know that, dejudge?

 

[Craig B]

Where do Paul's letters ever say there were "followers of Jesus" before himself?

Nowhere. I thought you would have known that. Don't you know that?

Can you quote from Paul’s letters where any of them say that?

No, of course not. Can you? I bet you can't!

I thought you would have known that there is no such wording in any of the accepted authentic letters of Paul. If, however, you think there is, then you can do a keyword search in Bible Gateway. But I'm pretty sure you'll come up with a blank.

 

[IanS]

Nowhere. I thought you would have known that. Don't you know that? No, of course not. Can you? I bet you can't!

I thought you would have known that there is no such wording in any of the accepted authentic letters of Paul. If, however, you think there is, then you can do a keyword search in Bible Gateway. But I'm pretty sure you'll come up with a blank.

Well it was of course YOUR claim that "Paul noted the existence of followers of Jesus"

Here is the direct quote of what you said -

I stated that Paul noted the existence of

Followers of Jesus.

So you agree that Paul’s letters do NOT “note the existence" of any "followers of Jesus”, at any time until after Paul himself had spent years going around all over the place (apparently) saying that God had revealed to him that Jesus had once been the messiah (but was now dead and risen to heaven).

If you only meant that long after Paul’s supposed God-given vision of the risen Jesus, after Paul had told everyone that Jesus was the messiah (but now dead), that decades later by the time he wrote the letters, he said that others too believed that Jesus had once been the messiah, then I don’t think that’s news to anyone is it?

Why did you bother telling anyone that? Did you think that nobody in any of these HJ threads had realised that Paul’s letters claimed Jesus was they messiah?

 

[Pup]

Jesus might have been a real person. And there might have once been some good factual evidence of his existence. But it needs better evidence that the completely unreliable and obviously fictional writing of anonymous authored gospels.

That's my point. Just because obviously fictional stories are included doesn't prove that a normal man like Jesus didn't exist. For example, biographies that include "miracles" attributed to Catholic Saints are not proof that those real people didn't exist. Parson Weems' fanciful tales about George Washington aren't proof Washington didn't exist. They may be evidence that everything else should be doubted until corroborated, but it's perfectly possible for enthusiastic followers to claim supernatural powers for their real-life heroes.

Another contemporary example: the masters of chi or whatever power they claim will knock people down without touching them, who then get soundly embarrassed, when put in the ring with a skeptical fighter. But their followers claim their leader's supernatural powers exist, and the leaders are real, if deluded right along with their followers.

As you say, what we need is good factual evidence about Jesus one way or the other, just as we have for George Washington, most of the Catholic Saints, chi masters, etc. Unfortunately, as you say, it might have once existed. Whether it still does or can ever be found is another matter. This may be a question that is simply unanswerable at this late date, unless more records are found.

 

[JaysonR]

...

Without context, one cannot very well solve if this is akin to the posthumous 'George Washington's vision' or if this is akin to Entellus of Aeneid.

All one can solve without context is that..."Gee, there be lots-o-fiction in dat dere tale; mhmmm"...and that's about it.

 

[Craig B]

Well it was of course YOUR claim that "Paul noted the existence of followers of Jesus"

Here is the direct quote of what you said -

Here is my original exchange with dejudge. #2263

dejudge "The Pauline writers did NOT start a new religion. Pauline writers CLAIMED THAT THEY PERSECUTED THE FAITH and that there were CHURCHES and Apostles in CHRIST BEFORE THEM."
Me "That's right. So there were. Followers of Jesus."

So you agree that Paul’s letters do NOT “note the existence" of any "followers of Jesus”

I agree with what you said in your last post, that it is impossible to cite the expression "followers of Jesus" from any of Paul's letters. You're now, quite intentionally, putting different words to this and stating that Paul didn't note the existence of such persons in his letters, which is NOT the same thing as bring able to cite the words. Moreover I didn't specify the letters. You laid that down as a condition.

I said Paul noted the existence of prior followers of Jesus. You start by demanding that I find a particular expression in a particular source. Then you quietly back track. I don't intend to be taken in by this sort of tactic. The expression you specified is not in the source you defined, which you know perfectly well. If you have any sensible points to discuss, please raise them.

Why did you bother telling anyone that? Did you think that nobody in any of these HJ threads had realised that Paul’s letters claimed Jesus was they messiah?

I have no idea what you mean by that, in the context of the point at issue.

 

[Pup]

Well, please tell us which part of the Jesus story is accurate WITHOUT being "logically fallacious".

We can't know without outside corroborating evidence, but the parts that could potentially be true would be any of the non-supernatural ones that don't contradict known geography and historical events.


For example, there's the sermon on the mount. Obviously it wouldn't be a word-for-word transcription, but I could imagine a preacher going up on a high piece of land and giving a radical speech, the gist of which was remembered, altered and expanded on over the years.

Jesus's fast in the desert where he imagined talking to the devil is another example. Such vision quests are common in a lot of religions, though I don't know whether they were part of ancient Jewish practice specifically or this was something Jesus thought up on his own. But going several days (obviously not literally 40, as "40 days" was akin to saying a long unspecified time) without food or drink alone in the desert, then imagining one talked to the devil and coming back and telling your followers about it, seems just the kind of thing a religious leader might do.

There are lots of little incidents like that in the Bible that i think could be true, while others are obviously false, or told in a false way (A real person might have spooked some pigs off a cliff, but they didn't jump because they had evil spirits in them, for example).

Your admission that you don't know whether or not there was an historical Jesus does not impede the argument that Jesus was a figure of mythology.

The argument that Jesus was a figure of mythology is based DIRECTLY on the existing manuscripts and Codices with stories of Jesus who is described as a Transfiguring Sea water walker, the Son of God Born of a Ghost and God Creator.

It seems that your mind is closed to my point that it's possible for manuscripts to be partially false and partially true. In fact, just about every historical manuscript contains parts that are untrue, though usually not as obviously so as the Bible.

Without corroborating evidence, we'll never know which if any parts of the Bible reflect actual incidents, but my basic premise requires accepting that some manuscripts, and even some parts of stories within a manuscript, could be true whle other parts are false.

 

[Walter Ego]

I agree with Bart.

The mythicists have legitimate concerns. They’ve seen a lot of damage done by organized religion which has, over the years, not only supported crusades and inquisitions, but in our more recent history, supported slavery, racism, and oppression of women.

A lot of these mythicists think that organized religion, especially Christianity, is a dangerous and harmful thing. One of the ways they’ve tried to attack it is by saying it’s all based on a fantasy or myth. I think that’s a mistake. Rather than succeeding in debunking religion they just make themselves look foolish.

A better approach would be not to say that Jesus is unhistorical, but to say that he’s too historical. He was a first-century Palestinian Jew, not a 21st-century American.

The people who claim Jesus today and try to transplant him from his own environment into our environment without remainder have made a serious mistake. They have failed to take seriously his own historical context.

http://religiondispatches.org/inventing-jesus-an-interview-with-bart-ehrman/

Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who never claimed to be god and preached the imminent end of the world. He was wrong. His message was for his time, not ours.

 

[JaysonR]

Yeah...well...appropriation is a b----.


_{(p.s. really tired of the censorship like we're in Junior High or Sunday School....It's not like swearing is INHERENTLY offensive in intended use...honestly, it's a bit insulting and personally offensive to be forced into not reading swearing...but...whateve's)}

 

[maximara]

dejudge, atheists who think it probable that there is a real person underlying the figure of Bible Jesus don't believe that he was really the Son of the Jewish God. So the immense labour you invest in asserting that he wasn't the Son of God because God doesn't exist is all wasted, which is a pity.

Right and this point has been around since at least 1909 with Remsburg.

As I have said before if we take the ideas of Remsberg in 1909, Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 (and used by Richard Carrier in 2014) and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004 and mesh them together we these two historical Jesus:

Reductive theory (Remsburg's Jesus of Nazareth): "Jesus was an ordinary but obscure individual who inspired a religious movement and copious legends about him" rather than being a totally fictitious creation like King Lear or Doctor Who
Triumphalist theory (Remsberg's Jesus of Bethlehem): "The Gospels are totally or almost totally true" rather than being works of imagination like those of King Arthur.

Despite the handful of scholars still proposing it the triumphalist theory is dead; it's been dead for a long time.

The born of a Ghost nonsense is easily dismissed as known historical people such as Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar were also so credited.

Bob Tucker's idea that the 'born of a virgin' "wan an ancient figure of speech, a way of pointing, not to privilege and wealth, but to extraordinary personal qualities exhibited by an individual" ie the ancient equivalent of 'born with a silver spoon in his mouth' seems reasonable.

"People used the term ‘virgin birth’ not because they believed in miracles, but because it was an attempt to say something about the greatness of a person."

Can we please stop kicking the triumphalist Jesus battered remains down the road and look at the plausibility of a reductive Jesus?

 

[JaysonR]

How exactly do we look at the plausibility of a reductive Jesus, or even know what a reductive Jesus looks like, when we don't know what kinds of attributes were cultural literary values because we don't know the culture to look at for a gauge of those values?

We can discern much about Alexander the Great or King Lear because we know the cultural context and can trace the values of phrases and forms of writing.

With these texts, we are at a considerable disadvantage...we don't know their cultural context.

The only reasonable approach I can see is to firstly attempt to treat them as independent literary works and search for cultures that align with each text's literary markings.
Then, if after every pairing possibility has been completed, a value is found of at least one of those cultures writing in such a manner as to NOT be fully accounted for by purely literary creation, THEN perhaps there remains a possibility of a figure who actually existed...IF where we end up is somewhere near to Jesus' alleged physical location (obviously, if where we ended up was Spain [I'm not serious about that as a location; just an extreme example for the point], then it wouldn't really stand as reasonable to conclude that a Jesus not fully accounted for by Spanish literary form was actually extent, largely due to their vast separation in distance from the alleged location).