What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Belz...]

Well, I thought that Belz said that yes, the debate here is not actual research and cannot be regarded as such, but that it still can be interesting and at times informative. I agreed and went on to speculate freely without any first hand knowlege of the sources, like everyone else here, it seems.

Wild speculation <> educated guess.

 

[grahbudd]

Whether in olden times they believed such a thing, today we know it to be false and we know someone who claims to work a miraculous healing is a charlatan.
You may be certain that even in olden times, the charlatan was well aware they were simply pulling one over on the client.
One modern example could be the infamous 'psychic surgeons'.

Hmm.

I don't think that this follows.

We don't even need to go back to ancient times. Take existing traditional healing cultures such as the Mexican curanderismo. To our eyes, this looks like a really strange mixture of herbalism, psychology and spiritualism. One might think indeed that the "theoretical basis" for such a healing system (e.g. evil spirits cause illness and they can be driven out with certain rituals) is groundless.

But why would that be a basis for thinking that the practitioners of curanderismo would or should have the same view as this? And if they did not, what would be fraudulent about their practices (given that many of them actually work. at least within a certain framework)?

When I talk about "a certain framework", I want to suggest that today we tend to take only a limited part of what "illness" is (i.e. its organic cause) and tend to focus on that. But actually, for the sufferer, the actual experience is much broader than simple symptoms. There are also problems of self-image and worth; and there are problems of how that person relates to the rest of their society. For example, and tragically, in some african cultures, the experience of having AIDS is not just confined to being ill (wasting, sickness etc). Sometimes, once people develop AIDS they are simply left in isolation: their family will have nothing to do with them, will not talk about them etc etc, as if they never existed.

Without a theory of organic illness (e.g. infection), surely it is natural for the entire pattern of experience taken together to be seen as "illness". That's why in a lot of folk medicine there's a lot of emphasis on "restoration" of the sufferer to their community (see e.g. the gospel stories of the lepers and possibly the woman with the bleeding): their state has led them to being classified as "being ill" - and the consequent social effects are indeed part of what the sufferer experiences - they are part of what it is to be "ill".

If you were an anthropologist in, say, South America, and observing traditional healing practices there, would you be inclined to say that the practitioners were "frauds"?

 

[Beelzebuddy]

If you were an anthropologist in, say, South America, and observing traditional healing practices there, would you be inclined to say that the practitioners were "frauds"?

Yes. Earnest woo is still woo.

 

[The Norseman]

Hmm.

I don't think that this follows.

We don't even need to go back to ancient times. Take existing traditional healing cultures such as the Mexican curanderismo. To our eyes, this looks like a really strange mixture of herbalism, psychology and spiritualism. One might think indeed that the "theoretical basis" for such a healing system (e.g. evil spirits cause illness and they can be driven out with certain rituals) is groundless.

But why would that be a basis for thinking that the practitioners of curanderismo would or should have the same view as this? And if they did not, what would be fraudulent about their practices (given that many of them actually work. at least within a certain framework)?

When I talk about "a certain framework", I want to suggest that today we tend to take only a limited part of what "illness" is (i.e. its organic cause) and tend to focus on that. But actually, for the sufferer, the actual experience is much broader than simple symptoms. There are also problems of self-image and worth; and there are problems of how that person relates to the rest of their society. For example, and tragically, in some african cultures, the experience of having AIDS is not just confined to being ill (wasting, sickness etc). Sometimes, once people develop AIDS they are simply left in isolation: their family will have nothing to do with them, will not talk about them etc etc, as if they never existed.

Without a theory of organic illness (e.g. infection), surely it is natural for the entire pattern of experience taken together to be seen as "illness". That's why in a lot of folk medicine there's a lot of emphasis on "restoration" of the sufferer to their community (see e.g. the gospel stories of the lepers and possibly the woman with the bleeding): their state has led them to being classified as "being ill" - and the consequent social effects are indeed part of what the sufferer experiences - they are part of what it is to be "ill".

If you were an anthropologist in, say, South America, and observing traditional healing practices there, would you be inclined to say that the practitioners were "frauds"?

How does any of this lend credence or support to the idea that an historical Jesus existed? I mean, I think I've understood you, but instead of my guessing, could you please be direct and spell it out?

ETA:
Would it also be safe to say that you have as one criterion the psychosomatic healer Jesus as evidence of existence, but simply disregard miracle healer Jesus as being non-evidentiary?

 

[pakeha]

Well, that's why I think "myth" should be confined to talk of events in some sort of primeval time, and legend to things that are at least meant to be set in history. The blanket use of myth here just creates confusion.

Hmm.

I don't think that this follows.

We don't even need to go back to ancient times. Take existing traditional healing cultures such as the Mexican curanderismo. To our eyes, this looks like a really strange mixture of herbalism, psychology and spiritualism. One might think indeed that the "theoretical basis" for such a healing system (e.g. evil spirits cause illness and they can be driven out with certain rituals) is groundless.

But why would that be a basis for thinking that the practitioners of curanderismo would or should have the same view as this? And if they did not, what would be fraudulent about their practices (given that many of them actually work. at least within a certain framework)?

When I talk about "a certain framework", I want to suggest that today we tend to take only a limited part of what "illness" is (i.e. its organic cause) and tend to focus on that. But actually, for the sufferer, the actual experience is much broader than simple symptoms. There are also problems of self-image and worth; and there are problems of how that person relates to the rest of their society. For example, and tragically, in some african cultures, the experience of having AIDS is not just confined to being ill (wasting, sickness etc). Sometimes, once people develop AIDS they are simply left in isolation: their family will have nothing to do with them, will not talk about them etc etc, as if they never existed.

Without a theory of organic illness (e.g. infection), surely it is natural for the entire pattern of experience taken together to be seen as "illness". That's why in a lot of folk medicine there's a lot of emphasis on "restoration" of the sufferer to their community (see e.g. the gospel stories of the lepers and possibly the woman with the bleeding): their state has led them to being classified as "being ill" - and the consequent social effects are indeed part of what the sufferer experiences - they are part of what it is to be "ill".

If you were an anthropologist in, say, South America, and observing traditional healing practices there, would you be inclined to say that the practitioners were "frauds"?

Of course.
Faith healing is fraudulent in any point in history, mythic, legendary or contemporary.
And the curandero knows it, as do psychic surgeons and hands-on 'healers'.
Of course you aren't including herbal remedies into the discussion, grahbudd.
That would be seen as trying to shift the goal-posts, you know.


Why are you try to deflect the discussion by comparing leprosy to HIV/AIDS?
"Restoration to the community"?
That's relevant to a discussion about faith healing in the NT because?

 

[grahbudd]

Of course.
Faith healing is fraudulent in any point in history, mythic, legendary or contemporary.
And the curandero knows it, as do psychic surgeons and hands-on 'healers'.
Of course you aren't including herbal remedies into the discussion, grahbudd.
That would be seen as trying to shift the goal-posts, you know.


Why are you try to deflect the discussion by comparing leprosy to HIV/AIDS?
"Restoration to the community"?
That's relevant to a discussion about faith healing in the NT because?

Well I flatly disagree with your first comment I'm afraid. Surely a fraud would have to know that their cures did not work. Do the curanderos know that? How do you know that they know?

Here's another example. Since ancient times, bloodletting has been used to treat all manner of illnesses. Were all bloodletters frauds?

 

[maximara]

I think Tim got carried away by his own ego addressing a non-existant arguement had he actually read the posts he'd have seen that,
1. "Historical" is poorly defined if at all. I think most people reading this would vote Gospel HJ = Myth, a living human that became HJ = probable
2. The evidence is anything but a slam dunk and there are few facts the whole interpretation of the evidence is pretty subjective and the most honest conclusion at best can be stated as "probable" there are no absolutes, right / wrong.
3. Most "mythers" do not dispute a living human as the basis for Christianity to say otherwise is stupid.
4. All the information/ data is freely available to anyone expert or amatuer, Tim describes himself AS an amatuer so by your measure and Stones we can safely dismiss his posts too?

1. Actually "Historical" is reasonably defined as shown by both Remsburg and Marshall; the problem is people confuse the story of Jesus (Remsburg's Jesus of Bethlehem) with the man himself (Remsburg's Jesus of Nazareth)

2. This is a problem. Too many apologists treat Jesus as a yes or no issue.

3. True but the majority of mythers are arguing that like John Frum there is nothing to connect the Gospel Jesus other than name to the flesh and blood man who preached in Galilee. Some mythers have said yes Jesus lived but he lived c100 BCE (Mead and Ellegård) while other have argued that the Gospel Jesus is a composite character of which a 1st century Jesus is only a part (John Remsburg and John MacKinnon Robertson).

4. The problem with both Tim and Stone is they keep going back to the Gospels or treating the "usual suspects" as if they were historical documents (see Scott Oser's Historicity Of Jesus FAQ (1994) for the standard list) even after the Provenance issues with these documents and the counter example of John Frum have been repeatedly presented.

They have both repeatedly ignored definitions of the Christ Myth theory that INCLUDE a flesh of blood Jesus (Frazer, Robertson Mead, Ellegård, Wells in Jesus Legend and Jesus Myth)

 

[Lowpro]

Well I flatly disagree with your first comment I'm afraid. Surely a fraud would have to know that their cures did not work. Do the curanderos know that? How do you know that they know?

Here's another example. Since ancient times, bloodletting has been used to treat all manner of illnesses. Were all bloodletters frauds?

Sort of like how you don't need to know physics to figure out things fall down?

 

[pakeha]

Well I flatly disagree with your first comment I'm afraid. Surely a fraud would have to know that their cures did not work.

Quite.

Do the curanderos know that? How do you know that they know?

Yes.
And the psychic surgeons and the hand-on healers, too.

I see I've let you go off-topic with the curanderos. Shall we get back to the subject, please?

I'm looking forward to reading your sources about 1st century folk medicine.

Here's another example. Since ancient times, bloodletting has been used to treat all manner of illnesses. Were all bloodletters frauds?

This is clearly unrelated to the topic of the thread, unless you're claiming jesus employed bloodletting as part of his act.

 

[IanS]

Well I flatly disagree with your first comment I'm afraid. Surely a fraud would have to know that their cures did not work. Do the curanderos know that? How do you know that they know?

Here's another example. Since ancient times, bloodletting has been used to treat all manner of illnesses. Were all bloodletters frauds?

Throughout human history, people may have believed that all sorts of faith healing and other treatments worked. But how is that evidence of a real Jesus?

Where in any of this, faith healing or gospel preaching etc., is there any reliable evidence of anyone ever witnessing a real Jesus?

 

[Belz...]

3. True but the majority of mythers are arguing that like John Frum there is nothing to connect the Gospel Jesus other than name to the flesh and blood man who preached in Galilee. Some mythers have said yes Jesus lived but he lived c100 BCE (Mead and Ellegård) while other have argued that the Gospel Jesus is a composite character of which a 1st century Jesus is only a part (John Remsburg and John MacKinnon Robertson).

And even that is uncertain.

 

[Belz...]

Well I flatly disagree with your first comment I'm afraid. Surely a fraud would have to know that their cures did not work.

What makes you think that he didn't ?

 

[maximara]

And even that is uncertain.

True but my point is that to look for Jesus one must start somewhere and Paul give you so few details as to be next to useless so that leaves you with the Gospels that were selected as canon by the sect of Christianity that had Constantine's ear. The Gospels considered sacred by other sects were deemed "heretical" and were for the most part lost to history known only through references to them.

Robert M. Price's The Pre-Nicene New Testament, Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures, and Robert J. Miller's The Complete Gospels together give a general overview of how much Christianity was fragmented by the time somebody decided it was well past time to reign this wondering horse in and make something kind of order out of the mess.

 

[Stamuel]

True but my point is that to look for Jesus one must start somewhere and Paul give you so few details as to be next to useless so that leaves you with the Gospels that were selected as canon by the sect of Christianity that had Constantine's ear. The Gospels considered sacred by other sects were deemed "heretical" and were for the most part lost to history known only through references to them.

Robert M. Price's The Pre-Nicene New Testament, Bart Ehrman's Lost Scriptures, and Robert J. Miller's The Complete Gospels together give a general overview of how much Christianity was fragmented by the time somebody decided it was well past time to reign this wondering horse in and make something kind of order out of the mess.

It is my understanding that the rejected gospels were probably based on the canonical gospels, except for a couple that some people think might reflect an earlier tradition, such as the Gospel of Thomas. If this is true, then the numerous other gospels are not particularly problematic. It just shows that Christianity was fragmented in the 2nd or 3rd century. Not that the four gospels are even less reliable than we might otherwise think.

 

[Bad vibe]

It is my understanding that the rejected gospels were probably based on the canonical gospels, except for a couple that some people think might reflect an earlier tradition, such as the Gospel of Thomas. If this is true, then the numerous other gospels are not particularly problematic. It just shows that Christianity was fragmented in the 2nd or 3rd century. Not that the four gospels are even less reliable than we might otherwise think.

People keep saying things like this but if we don't have them how do they know? and how do we know what the earliest tradition is? What bits survive of the 4 canonical gospels we have are 2nd - 3rd century too? Kind of smacks of selective bias rather than evidential reasoning.

 

[davefoc]

People keep saying things like this but if we don't have them how do they know? and how do we know what the earliest tradition is? What bits survive of the 4 canonical gospels we have are 2nd - 3rd century too? Kind of smacks of selective bias rather than evidential reasoning.

Maybe, but when I went off in search of evidence about the HJ one of the places I thought to look was at the non-canonical Jesus stories and I didn't find anything that was probative as to the nature of the HJ including whether he existed. Of course, my search wasn't comprehensive and maybe I missed something. All that is necessary to prove my view that there is nothing in the non-canonical Jesus literature that provides additional insight as to the HJ is to find something that does.

I had the idea, based on the notion that the Nag Hammadi literature had been lost for centuries and may have been repressed by a church structure, that there was something there that would be informative about what really went on in the earliest period of Christianity. What I found were books that were generally dated after the Gospels and even if you don't believe that dating, the books contain the same kind of religious oriented writing that the NT Gospels do, it's just that they tell different stories.

What they are clearly evidence of is that writing Jesus fiction in the second and third century was common. I would like to see where they are more than evidence of that and I hope somebody could provide evidence of that in this thread.

The extra-biblical Jesus literature does support my view about the nature of the creation of Christianity. I think there was a widespread view amongst the God-fearer religious group that a messiah was coming. At some point this morphed into a view that the messiah had come. (Whether that trigger included an HJ is, IMO, the main subject of these HJ threads.) Communication wasn't great in those days and while the story that the messiah had come spread through that community, the details of about the HJ didn't and each little enclave had its own Jesus story teller that came up with his own stories and his Christology to fill the demand. That lots of people seem to be writing Jesus fiction in the first and second century supports this idea a bit. FWIW, I think the notion that a messiah had come preceded Paul. I think Paul was just one of the earliest Jesus promoters that arose to exploit the market for Jesus stories.

And as a barely on topic aside, I watched a very entertaining documentary last night about how the Beatles had played a role in the downfall of the Soviet Union authoritarian state. What intrigued me with regard to this thread was how the isolated groups each created their own Beatles mythology in exactly the same way I envision the isolated groups of early Christianity each created their own mythology about the messiah.

 

[grahbudd]

It is my understanding that the rejected gospels were probably based on the canonical gospels, except for a couple that some people think might reflect an earlier tradition, such as the Gospel of Thomas. If this is true, then the numerous other gospels are not particularly problematic. It just shows that Christianity was fragmented in the 2nd or 3rd century. Not that the four gospels are even less reliable than we might otherwise think.

I think that's right in general. Even Thomas may well be post-synoptic.

There's also the Egerton fragment which someone mentioned earlier. That's early - perhaps 2nd century - and has general John-like tones with an independent miracle (on the river Jordan). Again, it may well be post-synoptic.

It's very hard to show any literature tha predates the gospels, with the exception of the Didache, which is probably very early.

 

[maximara]

Maybe, but when I went off in search of evidence about the HJ one of the places I thought to look was at the non-canonical Jesus stories and I didn't find anything that was probative as to the nature of the HJ including whether he existed. Of course, my search wasn't comprehensive and maybe I missed something. All that is necessary to prove my view that there is nothing in the non-canonical Jesus literature that provides additional insight as to the HJ is to find something that does.

I had the idea, based on the notion that the Nag Hammadi literature had been lost for centuries and may have been repressed by a church structure, that there was something there that would be informative about what really went on in the earliest period of Christianity. What I found were books that were generally dated after the Gospels and even if you don't believe that dating, the books contain the same kind of religious oriented writing that the NT Gospels do, it's just that they tell different stories.

What they are clearly evidence of is that writing Jesus fiction in the second and third century was common. I would like to see where they are more than evidence of that and I hope somebody could provide evidence of that in this thread.

The extra-biblical Jesus literature does support my view about the nature of the creation of Christianity. I think there was a widespread view amongst the God-fearer religious group that a messiah was coming. At some point this morphed into a view that the messiah had come. (Whether that trigger included an HJ is, IMO, the main subject of these HJ threads.) Communication wasn't great in those days and while the story that the messiah had come spread through that community, the details of about the HJ didn't and each little enclave had its own Jesus story teller that came up with his own stories and his Christology to fill the demand. That lots of people seem to be writing Jesus fiction in the first and second century supports this idea a bit. FWIW, I think the notion that a messiah had come preceded Paul. I think Paul was just one of the earliest Jesus promoters that arose to exploit the market for Jesus stories.

And as a barely on topic aside, I watched a very entertaining documentary last night about how the Beatles had played a role in the downfall of the Soviet Union authoritarian state. What intrigued me with regard to this thread was how the isolated groups each created their own Beatles mythology in exactly the same way I envision the isolated groups of early Christianity each created their own mythology about the messiah.

The difference there (as with nearly all comparisons to post Western Printing Press figures) is the load of external information showing the Beatles existed.

It is possible that like John Frum that someone was inspired by the already existing Jesus myth and plugged themselves into it. However is that was the case then you have a situation where the Christ Myth theory and HJ theory can coexist!

 

[Stone]

Hi --

There's a terrific blog that's just been started pointing out all the inaccuracies in Acharya's work on the Jesus myther racket. It's here --

http://somerationalism.blogspot.com/

-- and I'm hoping many will get to read it and comment on it here. I wish I had half the level of scholarship shown by this blogger!

Stone

 

[ufology]

Suppose that the true story of Jesus was that of ... blah blah blah ... In other words, how close to the Bible story would a historical individual's life have to be to be considered a (or the) historical Jesus?

Essentially it seems like you're asking the question: If the story of Jesus was historically accurate based on accepted objective historical standards, should it be considered historically accurate? It's a loaded question ... pointless.