The Historical Jesus III

[dejudge]

The same proportion that presents Thallus as evidence.

Van Voorst in his 2000 Jesus Outside the New Testament (pg 20-23) is one of the few pro-HJ people to go over the many problems with "Thallos" and NOT then try definitively use him as evidence. In fact, Van Voorst puts out so many caveats regarding this source that you wonder how any scholar who looked at it could even say it was worth anything as evidence.

Robert Van Voorst is a Christian Theologian so must tell people Jesus existed as the Son of God WITHOUT historical evidence.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E._Van_Voorst

Robert E. Van Voorst (born 5 June 1952) is an American theologian and educator.



Van Voorst has also served as a supply pastor at various PC(USA) churches in north-central Pennsylvania, and for twelve years as pastor at Rochester Reformed Church, New York

Examine the beliefs of the Reformed Church

We believe Jesus, the Son of God, entered our broken world and lived a life that reveals God to us and tells us who we are.

 

[Craig B]

The same proportion that presents Thallus as evidence.

And that is ... ?

 

[maximara]

And that is ... ?

As I said before the same proportion that presents Thallus as evidence for a historical Jesus.

The fun detail is that in the 19th century regarding the work Eusebuis references for Thallus, Charles Burlingame Waite stated "The majority of scholars are pretty well satisfied, that such a work never existed." More over "Thallus [the historian] is cited by Justin Marthyr, Terullian, Minucius Felix, Lactantius and Theophilus, no one of whom ever claimed his works contained any such passage, nor was the passage known, so far as we have any evidence to any other ancient writer"

So again why would ANY scholar worth the name use Thallus as evidence of a historical Jesus today? Use the freaking Tanaka Memorial as proof that Japan in the 1930s had this mad dream of taking over the world while you are at it. Sheesh.

The Historical Jesus For Dummies has it right in that Thallus at best "tells up more about what Christians were claiming then what Jesus did" (pg 76)

Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case Four: Alleged Scholarly Refutations of Jesus Mythicism drop kicks the Thallus reference

"Now, Africanus does not quote Thallus but puts things in his own words, and those words are anything but indicative of exactly what Thallus said. Africanus is discussing the portents at Jesus’ crucifixion, and mentions: “the most dreadful darkness fell over the whole world…Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse of the sun in the third book of his Histories, but erroneously it seems to me.” (Erroneous, he says, because a solar eclipse cannot happen at the full moon.)

This does not tell us that Thallus mentioned Jesus, or connected his reported eclipse with the Christian tradition of the crucifixion. He could merely have been chronicling an eclipse around the period associated with Jesus’ death, and Julius Africanus is making his own link, assuming that Thallus is in fact referring to the “darkness” erroneously. Such an interpretation would make Thallus useless as a witness to Jesus."

We have seen with Tertullian who claimed 'We read the lives of the Cæsars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith." which is NOT true that the Christians were not above reading things into passages that simply were not there.

Suetonius in reality gives NOT indicate how the Christians were punished. All he does shows is that they were just one of the "many abuses" that were "severely punished and put down", i.e. part of a general house cleaning of Rome. Are we to assume that "He put an end to the diversions of the chariot drivers" means Nero went on a killing spree of chariot drivers? No. Then why assume that of Christians? In fact in this passage only inflicted punishment that is disclosed only in the case of 'the pantomimic actors and their partisans' (banishment).

The Christians could have simply been driven from Rome as had been the case with Jewish and Egyptian worshipers under Tiberius in 19 CE, Their lands and wealth could have been confiscated for the good of the state, they may have been enslaved, or subject to some other kind of non-capital punishment.

Tertullian is (surprise, surprise) claiming something that is not in the material he is citing. So why can't the same be true of Africanus?

 

[Craig B]

As I said before the same proportion that presents Thallus as evidence for a historical Jesus.

But you have said

Thallus is the smoking gun that the 'fix is in' and that a large part of the pro-HJ side is a total joke.

So, what large part? How large is this part? To say that the part that presents Thallus as evidence is as large as the part that presents Thallus as evidence is not very helpful, is it?

 

[maximara]

"These words are found in "Against Heresies"."

A meaningless claim, since there were nearly as many "Against Heresies" as there were early church figures to write them - and some such polemics we know indirectly only through quotations, the originals having been lost. Your selected quote may or may not represent an orthodoxy; it may or may not represent a heresy; it may or may not even be an accurate quote regardless of its import.

See E-Sword for just one site which offers numerous free downloads of early church writers' manuscripts as well as accompanying commentaries. (Multiple biblical translations which can be viewed in parallel as well.) Time-consuming but worthwhile.

http://www.e-sword.net/downloads.html

Early Church Writings is easily available to anyone who doesn't want to download programs to their machine that they don't need to.

 

[Leumas]

If you want to do yourself another favour, read this devastating criticism of it.

ETA Here's the conclusion of the critical analysis.

Hardly devastating... I actually bought and read the book because of the diatribe and utterly biased poppycock and hogwash and imbecilic claptrap and disgusting vitriol in that review.

So in fact far from being devastating that review helped me decide to buy and read the book.

I bet you never read the book!

I on the other hand bought the book precisely due to the venom and derision of the review so that I can see for myself... and I was not disappointed ... the book was good and the review was wrong.

I suggest you read it instead of relying on a reviewer... you ought to start making your own opinions one day instead of letting others do it for you and then start defending them as if they were yours.

 

[maximara]

But you have said So, what large part? How large is this part? To say that the part that presents Thallus as evidence is as large as the part that presents Thallus as evidence is not very helpful, is it?

"Apologists reply that the ancient authors Thallus and Phlegon confirm the Gospel accounts of the supernatural darkness at the time of the Crucifixion." - Chris Sandoval (2010)

You will agree that the Apologists are the majority of the HJ-crowd, right? And you will agree that scholars like Eddy-Boyd try to use Thallus, right?

At least Van Voorst does NOT list all the problems of Thallus and then say "In Thallus we have probable confirmation that an unusual darkness came over the earth when Jesus was crucified" as Eddy-Boyd do (pg 198)

If you are simply trying to show Jesus existed as a human being with NO supernatual powers at all then (bad pun time) WHY in the name of heaven would you pull out Thallus? The ONLY purpose Thallus serves is to promote the miracle making god-man. NO astrologer of the time note this darkness ANYWHERE.

 

[IanS]

This is false. "There is no scholar in any college or university in the Western world who teaches classics, ancient history, new testament, early christianity, any related field, who doubts that Jesus existed" That's who I'm talking about. Don't tell me what I'm talking about, and that I'm not paying attention...

I don't think what you are trying to claim (a very broad generalised claim from you) is actually true.

For example - almost all of the "scholars" who have ever been named in any of these HJ threads on either this forum or on RationalSkepticism or on the old Richard Dawkins forum (that's going back almost 10 years now!), have been biblical New Testament lecturers in specifically religious studies departments (inc. theological colleges).

Historians in general do not actually study biblical writing about the existence of Jesus. And afaik, classicists do not generally stray into the field of Jesus historicity either. Both historians and classicists may mention biblical writing (which is all writing about Jesus) in the much wider context of general studies covering that period of history, but the bible and Jesus are not the central focus of their teaching. They are not typically teaching each day all about Jesus and the Bible. And they do not go into those fields of academia entirely because they all have pre-existing devout religious faith.

Whereas the bible studies scholars who are being cited in all these HJ threads, are solely concerned with Jesus and the bible, and they do spend all of their lectures teaching about Jesus and the biblical writing. And where almost all of them (if not literally all the tens of thousands of them), decided to enter that field of academia purely and entirely to support and to further their already pre-existing highly devout religious belief. And as I say, you can very easily confirm that just by checking wikipedia or other on-line searches for the academic qualifications and life backgrounds for any of those individuals by name.

Apart from that, it is of course also true that outside of core sciences such as physics, chemistry maths and biology, and especially in the USA, many university lecturers are practicing Christians who believe in God and certainly believe Jesus was a real individual who was crucified in the 1st century. So it's obviously likely that as devout Christians some of those academics will from time to time write in support of Jesus belief from what they think is the history recorded in the bible or in very late copies of some non-biblical writing from Tacitus or Josephus or others. But that is of course not at all surprising, because the number of biblical scholars & theologians alone must run into the tens of thousands, and the number of academic university lecturers who are practicing Christians must run into the hundreds of thousands ... so it would be utterly astonishing if at least a few hundred such people around the world were not motivated from time to time write in support of Jesus belief.

But that does not change the fact that the people who are invariably named and quoted in these threads as swearing that Jesus was a “definitely” and “certainly” real, are almost always very easily identifiable as biblical scholars and theologians (as well as s Christian writers in general) who are absolutely drowning in qualifications of religious studies and with almost no other qualifications outside of those faith-based qualifications, and where almost all of them show an early background of quite extreme religious belief.

IOW - you are definitely talking about bible scholars and theologians for 99% of what is being quoted here as coming from "scholars of history".

 

[maximara]

If you want to do yourself another favour, read this devastating criticism of it.

ETA Here's the conclusion of the critical analysis.

The author of that piece doesn't know what they are talking about.

" However mainstream scholarship moved away from the assumptions and methodology of Frazer's anthropology of religion and the idea of Jesus as purely mythical never gained substantial traction."

"My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth" - Frazer, Sir James George (1913) The golden bough: a study in magic and religion: Volume 9 Page 412.

First, Frazer was NEVER part of the "Jesus as purely mythical" crowd despite what Schweitzer claimed (this is where it generally comes from).

Second, mainstream scholarship has NOT moved away from the assumptions and methodology of Frazer. If anything mainstream scholarship has totally EMBRACED Frazer's position of a human Jesus to whom various elements preexisting mythology was attached to with total gusto. It is the fringe that still holds to the idea the Gospels in their entirety are history.

Finally, go read Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God which took Frazer's anthropology of religion to the next level.

What follows is a rambling mess.

The many flaws that make people doubt any of the Testimonium Flavianum is real are ignored The fact that Origen TWICE states that Josephus stated that the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple was due to the death of James the Just in the passage he is referencing is also ignored.

Then you have the fact Christians for the longest time saying James the Just died c 69 CE (citing Hegesippus, Clement of Alexandria or Eusebius of Caesarea) while Josephus' James is dead in 62 CE which this author also ignores.

"The epistles of Paul pose another problem for Mythers like Fitzgerald."

Given Paul is going on a Jesus he sees in visions and doesn't given a single really useful historical detail this is total nonsense.

"He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1Cor. 2:8)"

According to this that is NOT true:

Note 1 at 1Co 2:6: This phrase, "princes of this world," is used here and again in 1Co 2:8. The Greek word that was translated "princes" is "ARCHON," and it means "a first (in rank or power)" (Strong's Concordance). Therefore, it could be referring to the wisest people of the world. However, that would seem to be redundant. The wisdom of this world had already been mentioned.

ARCHON was translated "prince" seven times in reference to demonic power (Mt 9:34, 12:24; Mr 3:22; Joh 12:31, 14:30, 16:11; and Eph 2:2). Therefore, the majority of scholars believe this phrase [in 1 Corinthians 2:6] is referring to the demonic powers that are ultimately responsible for carnal wisdom (Helps for Translators, p. 46)."

So to to make this statement the author is bucking "the majority of scholars".

The rest of the article is like that.

 

[IanS]

How incredibly unhinged... whether or not he was a real person, the bible is still immoral, and full of impossible stories.

Indeed, the biblical writing is filled from cover to cover with miracle claims that at the time (early centuries AD) were universally believed as quite certain to be true. And it has taken almost 2000 years to be proven all completely untrue fiction. That's only relatively quite recently, eg only since about 1850 AD, that most educated people began to realise how science was showing that almost all of that biblical writing about Jesus, i.e. all the miracles and divine insights of Jesus, which are actually the entire basis of what is described for Jesus as the messiah of peoples 1st century belief, cannot actually be true.

How reliable do you claim that such biblical writers actually are, when they are finally after about 1700 years exposed as writers of constant superstitious fiction? The gospels, which are almost the only source of any actual information about the earthly activities of Jesus, are of course also known only as much later writing from anonymous Christian religious scribes who were far too late ever to have known Jesus. How reliable do you think that is?

And there really isn't anything else outside of those gospels and letters as a primary source of any mention of Jesus at all. As far as anyone can honestly tell - all later non-biblical writers were far too late to have ever known Jesus, never claimed any such thing as ever knowing Jesus, and where their only other known earlier source from which any such non-biblical writers could have obtained any mention at all of Jesus, was that same earliest biblical writing and biblical preaching itself ... all of which comes, as I say, from anonymous religious Christians who had not only never known any such person as Jesus, but where none of them ever even tried to claim (not even untruthfully claim) that they had ever met Jesus or that anyone else had ever reliably written to claim they had met Jesus.

How reliable do you think that is as evidence of an impossible messiah that not a single one of those people had ever known except as a figure of extreme religious fanatical faith?

Where do you think these people who had never known anyone called Jesus, actually got their Jesus stories from? Randel Helms ("Gospel Fictions") shows that they were certainly using the OT as a source for creating Jesus stories from what had been written centuries before as messiah prophecy. And of course in Paul’s letters, where the writer “Paul” (whoever he, or they, were), not only never met anyone called Jesus (even though he was supposed to be a contemporary who for years had been spending all his time physically persecuting people who apparently believe in Jesus as the messiah), repeatedly stresses and insists that all of his information and knowledge about Jesus came to him “according to scripture” (as well as from divine revelation, of course) ... so Paul’s letters even spell it out in words of one syllable to say he was most definitely taking his Jesus beliefs from what he thought was being revealed to him as the true meaning of ancient messiah prophecies written in coded scriptures ...

.... how reliable do you think that fanatical belief in the prophecies of ancient divinely revealed scripture is as “evidence” of a Jesus figure entirely unknown to Paul except through that fanatical faith belief?

It’s not a question of sceptics wishing to believe or not believe in the existence of Jesus. It’s a question of evidence. And in stark contrast to what the church leaders and biblical scholars have insisted for generations, the actual fact of this matter is that the claimed evidence of anyone ever knowing a human Jesus is in fact non-existent ... there actually is no evidence of him at all as a real person that anyone hade ever met except in the sense of meeting him through divine superstitious highly ignorant 1st century faith beliefs.

 

[Belz...]

Do yourself a favor and read this book

• Nailed: Ten Christian Myths That Show Jesus Never Existed At All

Does it demonstrate that all HJ supporters are Christians? That was the lie that dejudge told.

 

[Belz...]

Billions of people believe Jesus existed as stated in the Christian Bible and worship Jesus as God Creator, the Logos, and born of a Ghost and a Virgin.

Atheists have NEVER EVER conceded that Jesus existed as a mere man with a human father.

Wow, that's some messed up logic, right there, and not just a little bit ironic.

Jewish Scholars and Atheists Scholars have NEVER EVER conceded that Jesus was a mere man with a human father.

Jews have denied that the Christ has already come.

How amusing that you reveal how little you understand of the argument.

 

[Craig B]

Hardly devastating... I actually bought and read the book because of the diatribe and utterly biased poppycock and hogwash and imbecilic claptrap and disgusting vitriol in that review.

"Vitriol", eh? You must have been shocked! shocked! by that, Leumas, particularly if the vitriol was "diatribe and utterly biased poppycock and hogwash and imbecilic claptrap". That sounds like really nasty vitriol.

 

[Mcreal]

I must agree entirely with C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.”

... A man who said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell.

... Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ​

Yes, the famous CS Lewis trilemma - 'lunatic', 'liar', or 'Lord' ('mad, bad, or God').

To which some, such as Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli¹, and Bart Ehrman², have added 'legend'.

1 Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, (Madison, 1994), 161–174.

2 Neely Tucker (2006) The Book of Bart [Misquoting Jesus], The Washington Post​

 

[Craig B]

Yes, the famous CS Lewis trilemma - 'lunatic', 'liar', or 'Lord' ('mad, bad, or God').

To which some, such as Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli¹, and Bart Ehrman², have added 'legend'.

1 Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, (Madison, 1994), 161–174.

2 Neely Tucker (2006) The Book of Bart [Misquoting Jesus], The Washington Post​

Jesus' alleged "claim to be God" is certainly legend - if in point of fact he is ever said to have made such a claim. The only place where one could argue such a thing is in the gospel of John, and nobody attaches much weight to that as a source of factual information.

 

[Mcreal]

If Jesus was ever alive to have been able to say anything

 

[Leumas]

Jesus' alleged "claim to be God" is certainly legend - if in point of fact he is ever said to have made such a claim. The only place where one could argue such a thing is in the gospel of John, and nobody attaches much weight to that as a source of factual information.

So some cherry picked bits of the buybull fairy tales must be true because of some special pleading for some other bits of the buybull fables make it appear that it is so and thus it is only reasonable that it most likely is so.

Illogical fallacies + Circular reasoning much?

Craig B.... do you mind answering the questions posed below? It seems historicists love to keep on wrangling but never in fact answer any questions posed to them... can you please answer the questions below?

Consider this scenario

I go to buy a used car that I saw advertised in the local newspaper and I examine it and find that it is not in the condition it was claimed to be in.

Moreover, the guy trying to sell it to me does not have an original title deed but only a copy of it and a badly made one at that.

Additionally, when I ask him for an I.D. he gives me one with a name that does not match what is clearly his ethnicity from looking at him.

Furthermore, when I ask him to come with me to the DMV to register the sale he comes up with some excuse.​

Am I right in suspecting something skewwhiff?

Should I go ahead and just trust and buy the car and pay for it?

Am I right to CHANGE MY MIND and walk away?

Who is the INSANE one

the one who has faith that the seller is on the up and up because MOST people who sell their cars are honest people?​

or

the one who drops the whole thing and walks away even if he does not have a 100% proof that it is not a fraud?​

 

[maximara]

Does it demonstrate that all HJ supporters are Christians? That was the lie that dejudge told.

As stated before dejudge keeps using the totally insanity of the Triumphalist (Gospel) Jesus to "disprove" any possible Reductive (Historical) Jesus.

I will grant there is a Great Man bias in all this ie Christianity is this major religion so their must be this great man behind the whole movement. A major figure who stand EQUAL to any other major figure in history.

Even the moderate idea that there may have been a messiah like figure that died c 4 BCE that Jesus based his ministry on (see Knohl's "The Messiah before Jesus") is greeted by the pho-HJ community with nearly the same kind reception as ANY version of the Christ Myth even when that version ACCEPTS the possibly of a man behind the story aka Frazer, Robertson, Remsburg, GA. Wells, etc.

 

[Craig B]

So some cherry picked bits of the buybull fairy tales must be true because of some special pleading for some other bits of the buybull fables make it appear that it is so and thus it is only reasonable that it most likely is so.

No.

You're not into this textual analysis thing, are you?

So some cherry picked bits of the Iliad fairy tales must be true because of some special pleading for some other bits of the Iliad fables make it appear that it is so and thus it is only reasonable that it most likely is so.

 

[maximara]

Yes, the famous CS Lewis trilemma - 'lunatic', 'liar', or 'Lord' ('mad, bad, or God').

To which some, such as Peter Kreeft & Ronald Tacelli¹, and Bart Ehrman², have added 'legend'.

1 Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics, (Madison, 1994), 161–174.

2 Neely Tucker (2006) The Book of Bart [Misquoting Jesus], The Washington Post​

Actually the original version was myth [BOTH meanings ie Legend and made up story], madman, or Messiah.

Ebenezer Cobham Brewer in 1874 had this version: "If Jesus Christ was not the true Messiah, He was either a madman, an enthusiast, or a cunning impostor."

The Dublin University Magazine of 1868 had an article called "Christ, Mythical and Real" that also kicked around this myth, madman, or Messiah idea

So the concept predated CS Lewis very birth by decades!