The Historical Jesus II

[Craig B]

Now imagine for a moment that you found out the letter was not really written by one of your friends.

Imagine that it was written by multiple unknown persons pretending that the letter was written by one of your friends

What do you imagine that you would do with such a letter?

You mean, it is to be written by insane forgers two hundred years in the future?

OK, if I obtained a letter about a new teacher, written hundreds of years in the future, like something out of Back to the Future I'd bring it to the attention of the scientific community, and then I think I might sell it. How much it would fetch I don't know, because artefacts constructed in the future don't turn up on eBay very often.

 

[IanS]

This is beyond absurdity. You have a "new teacher". Does this teacher manifest him or herself by walking into the classroom in the normal way? Not a bit of it. You experience the teacher as a light in the sky, "revealing" various incomprehensible metaphysical things that look like foolishness. You have never met this teacher physically, and those who have met him are your ideological opponents whose teaching you firmly reject.

And people ask themselves why you don't chat about the teacher's conversation or physical traits (he is a light in the sky and a voice - he has NO physical traits) or personal quality. That's an impossible mystery is it? This is all quite ridiculous.

Your description of it is what is "ridiculous".

You say "those who have met him (are) were (your) his ideological opponents ... ", but there were no such other people who ever claimed to have met Jesus! You completely invented those other people! Nobody ever claimed to have met Jesus!

Paul's letter names the people who he said had "witnessed" Jesus. And they all "witnessed" him only as a heavenly vision. And it was also far from clear that any such "witnesses" who were "apostles before Paul", had identified their believed spiritual heavenly messiah as anyone called "Jesus".

You have no evidence whatsoever of Jesus, and you just cannot ever admit the fact of that. Your posts are exactly what would be expected of a religious fanatic who cannot stand to hear that his believed lord Jesus is not supported by any actual evidence.

There is no evidence of a human Jesus known to anyone in Paul's letters. And that is a "fact". In fact, it's also a "fact" that in the letters Paul makes repeatedly clear that the Jesus figure who he believes in, is a spiritual heavenly Jesus foretold by ancient scripture ... and that is the Christ who he says 500+ others also witnessed only ever as a spirit in the heavens.

 

[IanS]

None of that has anything whatever to do with the "conversations about my new teacher" theme. Nothing at all. Unless you're saying that James was Paul's teacher - and if you do say that I'm going to clobber you with Galatians 2.

I don't think you are going to "clobber" anyone here with anything. You have so far failed 100% ever to "clobber" anyone with any credible evidence of a human Jesus at all.

In fact you have spent all these years here in total abject failure ever to produce even the most microscopic spec of any actual evidence of anyone at all even claiming to have met a human Jesus.

And as far as Paul's incredibly brief 5 word mention of ever meeting anyone called "James" is concerned - if that "James" was supposed to be the actual family brother of a human Jesus, then when you ask above whether James could have been Paul's teacher about Jesus, note as has been explained to you countless times before, that in that supposed meeting Paul apparently asked this James not one single thing about Jesus, and in return "James" apparently offered to tell Paul not one single word about his "brother" Jesus ...
...

... this was supposedly Paul meeting James only a few years after the most astonishing and momentous thing that ever happened to Paul in his whole life, a complete life-changing miraculous visitation from the heavenly lord himself, after which he instantly disowns all his previous classical Jewish preaching and instantly starts to preach that God had revealed to him that the true messiah was named Jesus and was "according to scripture" ... and then he meets the actual human family brother of that same Christ, the Son of Yahweh, the most important person in the universe in Paul's belief, and yet he asks the actual brother of this most important saviour of the universe not a single thing about Jesus!? ... he is completely disinterested in finding out anything from his brother ("James") about the most important person in the universe who now is the complete and entire focus of Paul's life all day every day ... and yet they exchange not one question or answer or any mention of Jesus at all.

And then, some years after that, this same "James" the lords brother, apparently writes his own gospel. And what does he tell his readers about all his years of growing up with his young brother Jesus? Not one single word. He never claims Jesus was any brother known to him at all. In fact he never even attempts so much as a small "fib" to claim that he had ever even met any messiah called "Jesus".

 

[dejudge]

Now imagine for a moment that you found out the letter was not really written by one of your friends.

Imagine that it was written by multiple unknown persons pretending that the letter was written by one of your friends

What do you imagine that you would do with such a letter?

You mean, it is to be written by insane forgers two hundred years in the future?

OK, if I obtained a letter about a new teacher, written hundreds of years in the future, like something out of Back to the Future I'd bring it to the attention of the scientific community, and then I think I might sell it. How much it would fetch I don't know, because artefacts constructed in the future don't turn up on eBay very often.

Well, you can try to sell your IMAGINARY Papyri of the Pauline Corpus which you imagine were written c 50-60 CE by an auditory hallucinator.

People may have already been incarcerated for selling fake ancient artefacts.

 

[Craig B]

Well, you can try to sell your IMAGINARY Papyri of the Pauline Corpus which you imagine were written c 50-60 CE by an auditory hallucinator.

People may have already been incarcerated for selling fake ancient artefacts.

I'll swap my first century AD Paul manuscript for your first century BC Caesar manuscript.

 

[IanS]

I'll swap my first century AD Paul manuscript for your first century BC Caesar manuscript.

Why do you need a 1st century BC manuscript from Caesar in a thread about evidence for Jesus?

We are not talking about Caesar. He's irrelevant here.

If you doubt that Caesar existed then start another thread with your beliefs. But it's not a belief which is being contested either way here.

Where is your evidence of anyone ever knowing a human Jesus?

You have had years here to produce that now, and so far failed 100%.

If you have no such evidence of a human Jesus, then the thread is at an end.

 

[dejudge]

None of that has anything whatever to do with the "conversations about my new teacher" theme. Nothing at all. Unless you're saying that James was Paul's teacher - and if you do say that I'm going to clobber you with Galatians 2.

What jokes you write!!!

You want to clobber people here with the mythology and fiction in Canon of the Holy Mother Church!!!

If you say Jesus was a man with a human father then clobber yourself with Romans 1, Galatians 1, Galatians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 1, Philippians 2, Ephesians 1, Colossians 1 and 1 Thessalonians 1.

Galatians was used to clobber people in antiquity who argued the fiction/heresy that Jesus was a man with a human father.

See "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus.

 

[Craig B]

What jokes you write!!!

You want to clobber people here with the mythology and fiction in Canon of the Holy Mother Church!!!

If you say Jesus was a man with a human father then clobber yourself with Romans 1, Galatians 1, Galatians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 1, Philippians 2, Ephesians 1, Colossians 1 and 1 Thessalonians 1.

Galatians was used to clobber people in antiquity who argued the fiction/heresy that Jesus was a man with a human father.

See "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus.

You venerate the Infallible Word of Ireanaeus, excoriating the vile Heretics. But I invoke Galatians not to establish the historicity of Jesus, but to show that James was not the "teacher" of Paul. Do please try to follow the arguments, instead of quoting Ante-Nicene Fathers, who were all obsessive religious nut cases.

 

[dejudge]

What jokes you write!!!

You want to clobber people here with the mythology and fiction in Canon of the Holy Mother Church!!!

If you say Jesus was a man with a human father then clobber yourself with Romans 1, Galatians 1, Galatians 4, 1 Corinthians 15, 2 Corinthians 1, Philippians 2, Ephesians 1, Colossians 1 and 1 Thessalonians 1.

Galatians was used to clobber people in antiquity who argued the fiction/heresy that Jesus was a man with a human father.

See "Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus.

You venerate the Infallible Word of Ireanaeus, excoriating the vile Heretics. But I invoke Galatians not to establish the historicity of Jesus, but to show that James was not the "teacher" of Paul. Do please try to follow the arguments, instead of quoting Ante-Nicene Fathers, who were all obsessive religious nut cases.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty.

You have invoked Galatians 1.19 to argue that the Pauline Jesus had a human brother.

You venerate the Infallible Word of Irenaeus and the Holy Mother Church to argue Jesus existed in the Flesh.

In a most clumsy intellectual dishonest manner you directly use 2nd century or later manuscripts of gMark, gMatthew, gLuke, gJohn and the Pauline Corpus as historical sources to argue that Jesus had a human father.

Instead of presenting contemporary historical data for your HJ argument you use the very same Christian Canon in the Infallible Word of Irenaeus which state Joseph took Mary as his wife AFTER she was found with child by a Ghost.

Your 21st century fiction story about Joseph and Jesus derived from your INFALLIBLE imagination has been clobbered. You have NOTHING.

 

[Peregrinus]

And you, being a expert on nothing, should surely be able to recognize it in others while being blithely unaware of it in yourself.

 

[IanS]

And you, being a expert on nothing, should surely be able to recognize it in others while being blithely unaware of it in yourself.

The idea (on most sites/forums, it's a "rule") on any forum here, is to "attack" the persons argument, not to attack the person themselves. We have had far too much of that in this thread already.

The thread asks for evidence of a historical Jesus. That means - a human Jesus known to anyone as the figure described in the bible.

Do you have any reliable evidence of anyone who described meeting a human Jesus?

 

[dejudge]

Well, you can try to sell your IMAGINARY Papyri of the Pauline Corpus which you imagine were written c 50-60 CE by an auditory hallucinator.

People may have already been incarcerated for selling fake ancient artefacts.

I'll swap my first century AD Paul manuscript for your first century BC Caesar manuscript.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty. I have never claimed I had "first century BC Caesar manuscript" and you don't have a first century AD Paul manuscript.

You swap 2nd century or later fiction with 21st century imaginative fables of Jesus and Paul.

 

[Craig B]

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty. I have never claimed I had "first century BC Caesar manuscript"

And I have always claimed that nobody has one.

 

[maximara]

In Soviet Russia... They would teach anything that aligned with Party ideology. Even then, I doubt they were teaching about Carrier's heavenly Davidic sperm bank...

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. - 2 Samuel 7

Reading reviews of Carrier's book I ran across this : "After all, had human authorities known who Jesus was and what his death would accomplish (their own salvation), they would have even more reason to kill Jesus, not less, as Paul asserts. It would only be Satan and his followers, who would be defeated by Jesus’ sacrifice, who would have refused to kill Jesus, had they known who he truly was."

 

[Craig B]

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. - 2 Samuel 7

Are you seriously suggesting that this passage means God will make David's semen King, and not his son? The word seed can mean either, but the context requires the second of these. This is evidently the intention of the translators, for they call the seed "him", while a bucket of sperm would have been "it", I'm pretty sure.

Or perhaps you're making a joke. I can't imagine that even Carrier would impart instruction of this order to his disciples.

 

[IanS]

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. - 2 Samuel 7

Are you seriously suggesting that this passage means God will make David's semen King, and not his son? The word seed can mean either, but the context requires the second of these. This is evidently the intention of the translators, for they call the seed "him", while a bucket of sperm would have been "it", I'm pretty sure.

Or perhaps you're making a joke. I can't imagine that even Carrier would impart instruction of this order to his disciples.

It's no use you trying to attack the character of people here by insinuating that they are "disciples" of Richard Carrier. That is not fooling anyone, and it’s not going to cover up the fact that you have none of your promised evidence for a human Jesus.

Stick to the subject of this thread please - where is your evidence that anyone in the 1st century ever met any human person described in the bible as "Jesus"?

You don't have any evidence of Jesus do you!

Your claims of having evidence have come to precisely zero. You have nothing.

And instead you are reduced to proclaiming belief in the holy bible as your evidence.

 

[dejudge]

And I have always claimed that nobody has one.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty.

Your post is recorded. This is what you stated in a previous post.

I'll swap my first century AD Paul manuscript for your first century BC Caesar manuscript.

You have no historical data to support your HJ argument so were forced to use the mythological and fictional stories of Jesus in the Canon of the Holy Mother Church.

You also blatantly mis-represent the Canon of the Holy Mother by claiming Joseph was the father of Jesus when the myth/fiction fables of the Canon specifically states that Joseph took Mary as his wife AFTER she was found WITH CHILD by a Holy Ghost.

Craig B, you cannot change the myth/fiction fables of Jesus in the Canon of the Holy Mother Church.

Jesus of the Canon of the Holy Mother Church was a figure of FAITH--NOT a figure of history.

 

[maximara]

And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. - 2 Samuel 7

It's no use you trying to attack the character of people here by insinuating that they are "disciples" of Richard Carrier. That is not fooling anyone, and it’s not going to cover up the fact that you have none of your promised evidence for a human Jesus.

Stick to the subject of this thread please - where is your evidence that anyone in the 1st century ever met any human person described in the bible as "Jesus"?

You don't have any evidence of Jesus do you!

Your claims of having evidence have come to precisely zero. You have nothing.

And instead you are reduced to proclaiming belief in the holy bible as your evidence.

Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ over on rationalwiki makes a excellent point:

"So even if Jesus is a historical myth (ie was a flesh and blood man) you could have the issue of the Gospel narrative being essentially false and telling you nothing about the actual Jesus other than he existed--effectively putting him on par with Robin Hood or King Arthur, who have had historical candidates suggested as much as 200 years from when their stories traditionally take place.

To make Jesus more than that a researcher has to assume some parts of the Gospels narrative is essentially true. But which parts? In answering that question all supporters of a "historical Jesus" get into the confirmation bias problem of effectively turning Jesus into a Tabula Rasa on which they overlay their own views."



As I have pointed out before Carrier's book is not just making a case of the Jesus myth but for the ahistorical Jesus (ie "no historical Jesus in any pertinent sense") as well.

A long time ago I took Carrier's definitions of minimal historical Jesus and minimal mythical Jesus and using John Frum as an example came up with a hypothetical Jesus who was neither a minimal historical Jesus nor a minimal mythical Jesus (numbers are Carrier's criteria; letters are others ideas) ie basically an ahistorical Jesus:

1) At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other.

2) Like many other celestial deities, this Jesus 'communicated' with his subjects only through dreams, visions and other forms of divine inspiration (such as prophecy, past and present).

3) Like some other celestial deities, this Jesus was originally believed to have endured an ordeal of incarnation, death, burial and resurrection in a supernatural realm.

A) A follower inspired by these stories "becomes" Jesus and is believed executed by the Jewish or Roman authorities. (in essence John Robertson's 1900 ideas meets GA Wells 1996 Jesus Legend via John Frum).

B) Tales of this inspired Jesus are fed back into the already existing allegorical story of the originally celestial Jesus creating a composite Jesus part mythical part historical (as in he existed as a flesh and blood man)--This seems to have happened to some degree with John Frum.

Carrier even suggests such a Jesus: Jesus ben Ananias [rendered as the "son of Ananus" in the Whiston translation; see 1957 Journal of Biblical Literature, Volumes 76-77 Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis pg 104 for a more up to date translation] (66-70 CE) in JW 6.301-309 who seemed to framework for the Passover part of the story.

C) These tales eventfully are shaped into the various Gospels we know of.

So we don't just have the Jesus myth theory but the ahistorical Jesus theory as well.

As Ehrman puts it "[The Christ myth] is the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition." In simpler terms, the historical Jesus did not exist. Or if he did, he had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

Ehrman expressly states that the Christ myth is NOT just the idea that Jesus did not exist as a human being at all but also includes no Jesus "worthy of the name existed" and that this Jesus "had virtually nothing to do with the founding of Christianity."

So here we have a difference in definitions with what Ehrman calls Christ myth and what Carrier defines it as are not in agreement. Ehrman's definition would fall into what Carrier has previously labeled "ahistorical".

 

[Craig B]

[A long time ago I took Carrier's definitions of minimal historical Jesus and minimal mythical Jesus and using John Frum as an example came up with a hypothetical Jesus who was neither a minimal historical Jesus nor a minimal mythical Jesus ...
1) At the origin of Christianity, Jesus Christ was thought to be a celestial deity much like any other ... <snip rest of hypothetical Jesus>

A remarkable procedure, to start with Carrier's ideas, add in John Frum and allow your imagination free rein. Result: you come up with a hypothetical Jesus.

A more rational procedure would be to look at and analyse the earliest sources. Simply declaring Jesus to have been a purely celestial deity is entirely arbitrary. The John Frum character in no way resembles Jesus, and simply indicates that invented people can be believed in, which we know anyway.

 

[IanS]

A remarkable procedure, to start with Carrier's ideas, add in John Frum and allow your imagination free rein. Result: you come up with a hypothetical Jesus.

A more rational procedure would be to look at and analyse the earliest sources. Simply declaring Jesus to have been a purely celestial deity is entirely arbitrary. The John Frum character in no way resembles Jesus, and simply indicates that invented people can be believed in, which we know anyway.

You are guilty of making two horrendous mistakes in the above.

First you are assuming that what you call "the earliest sources" are reliable in what they say about Jesus. But the supposedly earliest sources are the gospels and letters of the bible. And they have been proved in recent centuries to be just about the most fiction packed unreliable sources imaginable. You cannot cherry pick any reliable story of Jesus from a source which is now known to be a mountain of untruths and fictional religious mania.

Second mistake is to believe that those "earliest sources" ever described a human earthly Jesus who was known to anyone at all. They did not. If you believe Paul to be the earliest source, then the "fact" about Paul's letters is that they never describe an earthly human Jesus "witnessed" by anyone. They describe over 500+ "witnesses" of Jesus ... but all 500+ of them, every last one of them (inc. "Paul"), witnessed only a dead spiritual Jesus of heavenly religious belief. And Paul repeatedly tells his readers where he obtained his beliefs in those heavenly visions - he always says it was "according to scripture".