The Historical Jesus III

[Craig B]

Your belief is just a shortened mutilated version of the 4th century Nicene Creed.

Is this the HJers' Creed?

"We believe, without historical evidence, that Jesus might have existed".

To Walter Ego. This will go on and on, and it will never stop.

I find myself in agreement with this comment

I have been a bit baffled about why this matter evokes such strong feelings, especially among atheists. Since we all admit that there’s no evidence that Jesus was the son of God, did miracles, was resurrected or born of a virgin, and died for our sins, does it really matter so much if he’s based on a historical person? Why does this evoke such strong feelings, and such acrimonious arguments, from atheists?
Perhaps some of our concern comes from this: if we can show that there’s no historical Jesus, then the myth of Christianity tumbles down. That is, it’s no so much about convincing ourselves about the non-historicity of Jesus as convincing Christians.

As a corollary, it appears to such reasoners, who include dejudge and other posters here, that to assert the existence of an historical Jesus is to preach Christianity.

This is bluntly, crudely, and vehemently stated, even though it is manifestly absurd. But there seems to be no way of stemming this torrent of misapprehension (if such it be) so we must simply let it rip, and continue to argue the case of rationality.

 

[maximara]

No, my dismissal results from my view that he is hopelessly mistaken. Moreover, expressions like "Carrier is requiring ... " and "Carrier gives leeway ... " strike me as absurdly grandiose.

For the second time, "hominid" is not the right word here. I do not accuse Carrier of being a chimpanzee. See http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

You have called Carrier a "guru" which given its bad connotations is worse then calling him a chimp.

And you are still avoiding the actual points raised.

 

[Craig B]

You have called Carrier a "guru" which given its bad connotations is worse then calling him a chimp.

And you are still avoiding the actual points raised.

My #20 actually cites one of your sources. Whether a guru is worse than a chimp I don't know, but "hominid" suggests the latter.

 

[maximara]

I would like to comment on this, cited by maximara That's quite right, it seems to me, and I have made the point before in the earlier thread. If there existed a

Person named Jesus.

Very common name so a useless requirement.

Who was an in contact with John the Baptist.

Like Philo was supposedly in contact with Peter and "not only knew but welcomed with whole-hearted approval the apostolic men of his day"? That is what Eusebius claims in his The History of the Church

This comes of as a 'see our teacher knew this important person' stunt and useless.

Preached and performed exorcisms and healing practices.

IIRC Paul's Jesus doesn't do the last two. Few if any of Josephus would be messiahs did the last two either IIRC.

Was arrested and executed during the governorship of Pilate.

Again may have not happened any more then Robin Hood doing his thing under King Richard...or was that Edward and which Edward?

And whose followers were those identified by Paul.

Given Paul himself give warnings about "another Jesus" this is useless.


No compare this very restricted criteria with Carrier in his PEER REVIEWED SCHOLLARLY PUBLISHED book:

we don't even require that is considered essential in many church creeds. For instance, it is not necessary that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. Maybe he was, But even if we proved he wasn't that still does not vindicate mysticism. Because the 'real' Jesus may have been executed by Herod Antipas (as the Gospel of Peter in fact claims) or by Roman authorities in an earlier or later decade than Pilate (as some early Christians really did think) Some scholars even argue for an earlier century (and have some real evidence to cite)[25] ... My point at present is that even if we proved the founder of Christianity was executed by Herod the Great (not even by Romans, much less Pilate, and a whole forty years before the Gospels claim), as long as his name or nickname (whether assigned before or after his death) really was Jesus and his execution is the very thing spoken of as leading him to the status of the divine Christ venerated in the Epistles, I think it would be fair to say the mythicists are then simply wrong. I would say this even if Jesus was never really executed but only believed to have been Because even then it's still the same historical man being spoken of and worshiped."

Then there was a historical Jesus; and if not, there was not.

Rudolf Bultmann and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall used criteria that would allow Mead's c100 BCE Jesus to be historical. I guess in your little world they are gurus as well.

 

[waters]

So the only minor mystery in any of that is where Paul got the name "Iesous"

NOPE.

Where did Mark obtain the name, because Mark wrote first, as we know from reading Justin Martyr, who cites, without reference, several passages that correspond most closely to Matthew, the writer who in turn, used Mark as a source.

"Paul" doesn't appear on the scene until the late second century, when his epistles are referenced by the Bishop of Lugdunum, who conveniently had traveled to Rome, on that very day, when the Roman army captured Irenaeus' predecessor, Pothinus, and executed him, for having committed the crime of practicing Christianity. Was Irenaeus not guilty of the same practices as Pothinus?

The Roman army was so disorganized, that they failed to capture Irenaeus, so he succeeded in writing lots of books about various heresies,
none of which survive today, in their original Greek. I always wondered, why the Roman army did not capture Ireneaus, after he had traveled to Rome, to meet the Pope. In fact, why had not the pope himself been captured and executed?

I confess to having suspected that maybe Irenaeus had, in conjecture, never been in Lugdunum at all. Is it not very odd that a Syriac speaking cleric, educated in Greek, would be appointed head of the new Christian church in the ancient, Celtic speaking city of Lugdunum?
Were there then, no suitable candidates from among the local, Latin based intelligentsia, to recruit? Irenaeus must have been a true polyglot.

 

[Craig B]

Rudolf Bultmann and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall used criteria that would allow Mead's c100 BCE Jesus to be historical. I guess in your little world they are gurus as well.

They are if they wrote PEER REVIEWED SCHOLLARLY PUBLISHED books.

 

[Craig B]

NOPE.

Where did Mark obtain the name, because Mark wrote first, as we know from reading Justin Martyr, who cites, without reference, several passages that correspond most closely to Matthew, the writer who in turn, used Mark as a source.

"Paul" doesn't appear on the scene until the late second century, when his epistles are referenced by the Bishop of Lugdunum, who conveniently had traveled to Rome, on that very day, when the Roman army captured Irenaeus' predecessor, Pothinus, and executed him, for having committed the crime of practicing Christianity. Was Irenaeus not guilty of the same practices as Pothinus?

The Roman army was so disorganized, that they failed to capture Irenaeus, so he succeeded in writing lots of books about various heresies,
none of which survive today, in their original Greek. I always wondered, why the Roman army did not capture Ireneaus, after he had traveled to Rome, to meet the Pope. In fact, why had not the pope himself been captured and executed?

I confess to having suspected that maybe Irenaeus had, in conjecture, never been in Lugdunum at all. Is it not very odd that a Syriac speaking cleric, educated in Greek, would be appointed head of the new Christian church in the ancient, Celtic speaking city of Lugdunum?
Were there then, no suitable candidates from among the local, Latin based intelligentsia, to recruit? Irenaeus must have been a true polyglot.

Eh?

 

[waters]

No, Christianity was founded after his death by Paul and some of his other followers.

Hi Walter,

To die, a person must first be born.

Such a human individual must possess paternal DNA.

Can you furnish the name of the entity who had donated his DNA to the person who you can name as Jesus' mother?

YES, you can do that. Sure, no problem. Everyone can.

But then, Walter, that's the problem, because supernatural beings, in this case "pneuma", aka "spirit" in English, don't convey DNA to fertilize the female gamete.

So, try again Walter.

YOU HAVE NO EVIDENCE that Jesus ever lived in ANY form, whether as "miracle worker" or "magician", or "itinerant rabbi", or any of the rest of it.

nada.

Show me the beef, Walter, then you can write about his "followers", and the role played by "paul".

I claim, that there is no more evidence supporting the human existence of Jesus, than we have for the existence of ANY OTHER fictional character. Jesus was a fictional character in a Greek myth tale, from start to finish, exactly like Odysseus, Achilles, or Herakles, or any number of other famous Greek mythological heroes.

All you have to do, to persuade me, that I am in error, is to explain who furnished the paternal DNA, if the gospels err, and that DNA had not been furnished by pneuma.

 

[IanS]

As a corollary, it appears to such reasoners, who include dejudge and other posters here, that to assert the existence of an historical Jesus is to preach Christianity.
This is bluntly, crudely, and vehemently stated, even though it is manifestly absurd. But there seems to be no way of stemming this torrent of misapprehension (if such it be) so we must simply let it rip, and continue to argue the case of rationality.

"Other posters here" apart from dejudge have called you a closet Christian "preaching Christianity"? Who are they? Can you quote where anyone has seriously tried to maintain that you are lying when you say you are an atheist and that you are in fact an undisclosed Christian theist?

I don't even recall dejudge actually saying that about you or other HJ posters here. What I recall from dejudge's posts is that eventually, after years of argument in this thread, he sometimes replies saying your posts often sound to him as if you are a Christian evangelist who accepts the bible as factual evidence of Jesus.

But I don't think even dejudge has said any more than that, has he? And in saying that he is only saying that if you keep claiming the bible as a factual source on Jesus, and if you keep trotting out the same biblical arguments as Christians, Theologians, and Christian bible scholars (as the vast majority are), then what you claim as your Jesus belief does start to sound indistinguishable from the arguments proclaimed by all those devout Christian theists.

I don't think that I have ever seriously tried to say that you must be a closet Christian, have I? I think you are too easily buying the Christian theist line of believing that some things said about Jesus in the bible are more than likely to be true, but I don't recall saying more than that in the sense of ever saying that you, or Belz, or Brainache, or Walter, or any HJ posters here are hiding their true nature as a Christian theists evangelising about Jesus and the bible etc.

 

[Craig B]

... Show me the beef, Walter, then you can write about his "followers", and the role played by "paul".

I claim, that there is no more evidence supporting the human existence of Jesus, than we have for the existence of ANY OTHER fictional character. Jesus was a fictional character in a Greek myth tale, from start to finish, exactly like Odysseus, Achilles, or Herakles, or any number of other famous Greek mythological heroes.

All you have to do, to persuade me, that I am in error, is to explain who furnished the paternal DNA, if the gospels err, and that DNA had not been furnished by pneuma.

Eh??

 

[Elagabalus]

Eh??

I think it's just a bunch of hot air furnished by Central Pneumatic.

 

[fuelair]

No because he got it through the proper channels of peer review and an academic publisher.

Again stop using smartass ad hominid attacks and address the points raised.

Or is my assumption that your refusal to do so is because you don't understand system theory correct and you don't have clue one on how to deal with it?

IT WAS SUGGESTED EARLIER AND YOU SEEMED TO MISS IT - HOMINID IS A HUMAN LIKE CREATURE. tHE PHRASE YOU ARE WRITING INCORRECTLY SHOULD BE: Ad Hominem.........

 

[IanS]

NOPE. Where did Mark obtain the name, because Mark wrote first, as we know from reading Justin Martyr, who cites, without reference, several passages that correspond most closely to Matthew, the writer who in turn, used Mark as a source.

"Paul" doesn't appear on the scene until the late second century, when his epistles are referenced by the Bishop of Lugdunum, who conveniently had traveled to Rome, on that very day, when the Roman army captured Irenaeus' predecessor, Pothinus, and executed him, for having committed the crime of practicing Christianity. Was Irenaeus not guilty of the same practices as Pothinus?

The Roman army was so disorganized, that they failed to capture Irenaeus, so he succeeded in writing lots of books about various heresies,
none of which survive today, in their original Greek. I always wondered, why the Roman army did not capture Ireneaus, after he had traveled to Rome, to meet the Pope. In fact, why had not the pope himself been captured and executed?

I confess to having suspected that maybe Irenaeus had, in conjecture, never been in Lugdunum at all. Is it not very odd that a Syriac speaking cleric, educated in Greek, would be appointed head of the new Christian church in the ancient, Celtic speaking city of Lugdunum?
Were there then, no suitable candidates from among the local, Latin based intelligentsia, to recruit? Irenaeus must have been a true polyglot.

Well it doesn't make any difference. Whoever wrote first, they could find the name of Jesus in the OT, and the could infer from that (rightly or wrongly) that the messiah would have been called "Jesus".

And as you know, almost everyone apart from yourself and dejudge thinks Paul was definitely the first of those biblical writers (e.g. according to bible scholars, theologians, all Christian writers etc ... who is actually right or wrong, I have no idea, and no strong opinion either way).

 

[maximara]

My #20 actually cites one of your sources. Whether a guru is worse than a chimp I don't know, but "hominid" suggests the latter.

So you are hiding behind a typo to avoid addressing Carrier's actual points, I see.

It is still an ad hominem effort to avoid the actual issues.

I also took your five "requirements" for a historical Jesus and dropped kicked them.

To recap:

1) Jesus was a very common name so that is useless as a requirement.

2) Any supposed contact with John the Baptist could be nothing more then a 'see our teacher knew this important person' stunt and therefore useless. Eusebius seems to have pulled this stunt by having Philo was supposedly in contact with Peter and "not only knew but welcomed with whole-hearted approval the apostolic men of his day" so that is useless.

3) The preaching is a given for about any would be messiah and so is useless. AFAIR Paul makes no comments regarding Jesus himself performing exorcisms or doing healing practices so those may have been puffing up of what may have been a very minor teacher so again useless.


4) The arrest and execution during the governorship of Pilate*could be simply a way to reconcile Paul's vision of a Jesus with "reports of an obscure Jewish Holy man bearing this name" who in fact had drifted off into obscurity. - Dodd, C.H. (1938) History and the Gospel; Wells, G A Jesus Legend (1996) to present.

Paul's conversion has traditionally been between 31-36 CE with the crucifixion of Jesus being supposedly a recent event which would make Pilate the obvious go to even if the actual Jesus wound up being crucified sometime after 41 CE during the reign of Claudius


As for followers were those identified by Paul; we don't know what Paul was really doing here. We can't exclude the idea that he was trying to take the remnants of previous messiahs and put them under the Jesus banner. 2 Corinthians 11:4 expressly talks about "another Jesus" as well as "another Gospel" while Galatians 1:8 only addresses "another Gospels" so something is going on there.

 

[dejudge]

...As a corollary, it appears to such reasoners, who include dejudge and other posters here, that to assert the existence of an historical Jesus is to preach Christianity.

Again, you display intellectual dishonesty.

You seem to have completely forgotten that it was the poster under the name of "walter ego" who implied people here were fundamentalist atheists because they argued that Jesus was not a figure of history.

It is clear to everyone on this thread that people who argue for an historical Jesus MUST first discredit the Christian Bible and then turn around and use the very same discredited Christian Bible as a credible historical source.

You admit the Holy Ghost conception is a Late addition to the Gospels yet FAIL to admit that Joseph is also a LATE addition in the very same LATE sources.

Your supposed earliest sources do not mention Joseph and STATE DIRECTLY that GOD is the father of Jesus, that Jesus is the LORD from heaven, God's Own Son and use the very same NOMINA SACRA for Jesus and the God of the Jews.

Jesus is the LORD GOD in the Pauline Corpus and gMark.

You claim that Jesus the Son of a God had a "Davidic title" in gMark but FAIL to admit that Jesus of Nazareth was a WATER WALKING TRANSFIGURER in the very same story.

You admit your "Paul" saw NOTHING of Jesus, the Lord from heaven, God Creator, after he was raised from the dead but had auditory hallucinations of the resurrected Jesus yet use 2nd century or later writings by ANONYMOUS sources to argue Jesus existed in the 1st century pre 70 CE.

Your HJ argument is the very worst kind because you use ADMITTED sources of historical problems, discrepancies, contradictions and events which did not and could not have happened.

 

[maximara]

Well it doesn't make any difference. Whoever wrote first, they could find the name of Jesus in the OT, and the could infer from that (rightly or wrongly) that the messiah would have been called "Jesus".

And as you know, almost everyone apart from yourself and dejudge thinks Paul was definitely the first of those biblical writers (e.g. according to bible scholars, theologians, all Christian writers etc ... who is actually right or wrong, I have no idea, and no strong opinion either way).

Personally I don't see the logic in thinking "Paul" came after Mark. The idea that Paul could have had access to Mark with so much reference material to push his own version of Christianity and NOT use it doesn't make that much sense.

 

[dejudge]

And as you know, almost everyone apart from yourself and dejudge thinks Paul was definitely the first of those biblical writers (e.g. according to bible scholars, theologians, all Christian writers etc ... who is actually right or wrong, I have no idea, and no strong opinion either way).

Your claim that "bible scholars, theologians, all Christian writers etc think Paul was definitely the first of those biblical writers" is of no real value because you will not be able to present any evidence from antiquity to show that Paul was DEFINITELY the first of biblical writers.

The existing 2nd century or later hand-written Pauline Corpus [Papyri 46] were NOT written by Paul.

In the NT itself, people who wrote about Paul did not even claim he wrote letters to seven Churches, Timothy, Jude and Philemon.

May I remind you that the "Plenty People think" argument is useless in this forum.

This forum and thread was initiated for EVIDENCE and HISTORICAL data.

Penty people think [imagine things] WITHOUT first securing the required evidence or historical data.

The claim that the Pauline Corpus are early writings is hopelessly flawed and WITHOUT a shred of corroboration by non-apologetic and even aplogetic sources of antiquity.

The INTERNAL evidence in the very NT shows that the ENTIRE PAULINE Corpus was a LATE invention AFTER the stories of Jesus were ALREADY composed.

Apologetic sources PLACE Paul AFTER gLuke or AFTER the writing called Revelation.

See the Muratorian Canon.

See Origen's Commentary on Matthew 1.

Anyone familar with Koine Greek will see that the Pauline Corpus was UNKNOWN to the author of the short gMark and that the Pauline Corpus contains POST-RESURRECTION events that were UNKNOWN by all authors of the Canonised Gospels and Acts of the Apostles.

 

[dejudge]

Personally I don't see the logic in thinking "Paul" came after Mark. The idea that Paul could have had access to Mark with so much reference material to push his own version of Christianity and NOT use it doesn't make that much sense.

How can you see the logic that "Paul came after Mark" when you are relying on Carrier's argument?

Please, tell us what is the actual credible CORROBORATIVE evidence from antiquity for an historical character called Paul?

It is most fascinating that the very persons who ask for evidence for an historical Jesus are TERRIFIED to ask for the evidence for an historical Paul.

There is NO corroborative evidence, no historical data from antiquity for Paul of Tarsus, the Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin.

The character called Paul was an INVENTION EXACTLY like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The authors called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul were FABRICATED to falsely give PRIMACY to the Christian Canon.

 

[IanS]

Personally I don't see the logic in thinking "Paul" came after Mark. The idea that Paul could have had access to Mark with so much reference material to push his own version of Christianity and NOT use it doesn't make that much sense.

I don't know whether those letters are earlier or later than any gospels. But I am just arguing with the claims made here by HJ people who do say Paul's letters were written around 50-60AD ...

... so when I say "Paul could have got the name of Jesus from what he believed was written in the OT", I am of course just reminding the HJ posters of that. It's not me claiming Paul's letters were written c.50-60AD, it's the HJ opponents here who are all saying that ... dejudge knows that very well, but it does not stop him replying as if it was me that was claiming Paul's letters were written c.50-60AD ... why he feels it's good idea to completely misrepresent things like that is anyone's guess.

 

[Craig B]

It is most fascinating that the very persons who ask for evidence for an historical Jesus are TERRIFIED to ask for the evidence for an historical Paul.

There is NO corroborative evidence, no historical data from antiquity for Paul of Tarsus, the Pharisee of the tribe of Benjamin.

The character called Paul was an INVENTION EXACTLY like Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

The authors called Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul were FABRICATED to falsely give PRIMACY to the Christian Canon.

Exactly so, dejudge. For once I agree. There is no better reason for believing in Paul than for believing in Jesus, except that the information given about Paul is more plausible than much of that given for Jesus. But apart from you, most of these people do believe in Paul. Yet in the interest of equity they shouldn't!

Where does Paul come from? The Bible. Where else? Nowhere! Are we allowed to pick and choose things to believe out of the Bible, on the mere grounds that they seem plausible? Absolutely not!

You got them there, dejudge!