What counts as a historical Jesus?

[Piggy]

Does he, now ? Carrier doesn't seem to think so.

Which is why you should not be listening to Carrier.

Paul says clearly that Jesus was born of woman, a Jew, born into the Law (which applied to human Jews), that the Messiah was of the Jews, that Jesus lived and died and was buried and rose.

That's not a description of a non-human.

 

[Piggy]

Aeroplanes? Well in studies of WW2 you can tell something of the history from the physical remains of crashed planes and other military vehicles, ships etc.

So your analogy is to say that we have such physical remains proving the movement and activities of Jesus? What physical evidence is their of Jesus?

There is absolutely no comparison between the history of recent events like WW2, and what was claimed 2000 years ago in copies of fictional religious writing such as the bible.

What are you talking about?

You've just taken this discussion into a 90 degree turn.

There was a claim that somehow folks studying ancient religious artifacts aren't real historians, because… well… because those artifacts are religious.

That's absurd.

And what you're talking about now is irrelevant to the point.

 

[Piggy]

Is that particularily relevant whether or not I can ?

Of course it is.

If you take a non-controversial situation -- that the followers of Jesus actually were followers of Jesus -- and propose an alternate scenario for which no evidence exists and which doesn't actually cohere, then it would help your case at least somewhat if there were some precedent for scenarios like that.

But when there are no precedents either, then you've got a handful of nothing.

 

[HansMustermann]

Wow! You know more about it than the profs at Princeton!

You should write them and tell them they don't know diddly.

Yes, and if you don't believe in acupuncture, you should write to several professors at prestigious colleges to tell them they're wrong and you know better than them. (And sadly I don't mean just in China, but it's taught right here in Germany too.) And if you don't believe in homeopathy, you should write to several professors and prestigious homeopathy publications and tell them that you know better than them. (Ditto, medicine students at prestigious universities can take homeopathy courses.) Ditto for dowsing, spiritism, chiropractic, astrology, alternative medicine, tarot, etc. Who the hell are you to think that so many people who taught that all their life are wrong?

Seriously, authority doesn't make one right.

Even in informal logic, authority isn't what makes something right, but a heuristic allowed under certain conditions to GUESS whether someone is right and you don't have to check their reasoning. But even then, it does not make one right, and it is not acceptable when the whole question is whether they are right in the first place.

Just because sometimes you're allowed to take a semi-informed guess about who you trust, doesn't make them right, and doesn't make their unsupported opinions unassailable.

And even then not all disciplines are born equal. You can put some faith in the consensus in physics, because they actually try to prove each other wrong all the time, by checking each other's predictions against reality. You can put a lot less faith in the consensus in homeopathy or acupuncture or spiritism, where nobody checks any predictions against anything.

You can take a pretty good guess that QM equations are right because thousands of people tried to disprove them and failed, and conversely thousands of working devices are based on their working that way. The consensus isn't based on just sounding about right to someone else, but on those guys actually trying to disprove it and failing. You can't do the same guess about acupuncture, because there is no evidence that anyone did the same.

So, you know, even before claiming the same power of authority as the former as opposed to the latter, you have to show that the same safeguards and tests are in place as the former.

 

[Piggy]

Seriously, authority doesn't make one right.

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed personal comment

 

[HansMustermann]

And your having NO arguments except the appeal to authority fallacy (and at least once an appeal to an appeal to authority) has ceased to be funny a long time ago too, but I trust we'll both find a way to live with it

 

[IanS]

I'm not saying that you should read their literature and believe it.

What I'm saying is that if you want to understand anything about the followers of Jesus, studying artifacts that were made by the earliest Christians would be the FIRST thing you should do.

Chief among those artifacts are their writings.

"Artefacts" are usually considered to be tangible man-made objects. A bound book or a sheet of writing paper may be an "artefact", but the fact that paper or papyrus existed in 1st century AD is not evidence of Jesus.

What is written on the paper as beliefs or claims, is not usually described as a physical "artefact". And what was written in the known copies of the gospels and Paul's Letters is now known to be quite definitely fiction.

In first century AD the people who wrote the bible actually believed that miracles were a definite fact of every day life. They happened all the time. But now, after several centuries of modern scientific discovery, we know that miracles are fictional. They never happened to anyone called Jesus, and none of the reported eye-witnesses actually ever saw any such thing. Those accounts are mythical.

Do you know of any credible evidence of Jesus outside the biblical writing itself, where that extra-biblical writing is not in fact only hearsay?

 

[Piggy]

"Artefacts" are usually considered to be tangible man-made objects. A bound book or a sheet of writing paper may be an "artefact", but the fact that paper or papyrus existed in 1st century AD is not evidence of Jesus.

True. Everyone on earth agrees with you there.

What is written on the paper as beliefs or claims, is not usually described as a physical "artefact". And what was written in the known copies of the gospels and Paul's Letters is now known to be quite definitely fiction.

It's true that the ideas aren't artifacts, but that's immaterial.

It's still true that if you want to know about a group, reading their writings is a good idea, regardless if they're writing truth or fiction.

But that last bit is false. Nobody in the academic community studying the ancient near east believes that Paul's letters are "quite definitely fiction".

In first century AD the people who wrote the bible actually believed that miracles were a definite fact of every day life. They happened all the time. But now, after several centuries of modern scientific discovery, we know that miracles are fictional. They never happened to anyone called Jesus, and none of the reported eye-witnesses actually ever saw any such thing. Those accounts are mythical.

Again, you're saying something that nobody disagrees with, until you get to that last statement.

Those stories are not technically mythical, even though they are not factual.

Do you know of any credible evidence of Jesus outside the biblical writing itself, where that extra-biblical writing is not in fact only hearsay?

OK, so you're asking where's the evidence if we exclude the best evidence we have.

An odd question.

There's a reference in Josephus, but he certainly didn't write all of it, and may not have written any of it. Also what may be a reference to the killing of Jesus's brother James, but it's highly ambiguous.

The strongest evidence we have, of course, is that there is a group of Jews in the middle of the 1st century who say they are followers of a holy man named Jesus who lived in Galilee and was crucified by Pilate.

We even have letters from one of them which describe his dealing with some of the others who, according to him, knew Jesus or were even related to him.

By far, the most reasonable explanation for why those people said they were followers of a man called Jesus is that they were followers of a man named Jesus.

And so far, despite the "just asking questions" crowd, no coherent alternative scenario has ever been offered. Nor has anyone even shown any need for alternative scenarios… not even a single precedent or parallel, much less direct or even indirect evidence.

Next to this Jesus Myth stuff, the evidence for a historical Jesus is infinitely better. (Something is always infinitely better than nothing.)

 

[Slowvehicle]

See post 1571 above, the citation from Anderson.

Unsupported assertion is not evidence. Please to demonstrate one real-world natural use as you describe.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Which is why you should not be listening to Carrier.

Paul says clearly that Jesus was born of woman, a Jew, born into the Law (which applied to human Jews), that the Messiah was of the Jews, that Jesus lived and died and was buried and rose.

That's not a description of a non-human.

And "Pauline" writings are evidence for what is contained in "Pauline" writings because it's right there, in the "Pauline" writings...which demonstrate the content of some of the "Pauline" writings...

...not to mention, "...was buried and 'rose'..." is not a description of a human. Zombi, perhaps, but not human.

 

[Belz...]

There's nothing I can do, Belz.

Yes, you can. Instead of simply telling him you can't speak to him, speak to him.

I mean, whenever any one of you two is posting in a thread about this topic, your posts are both compelling and entertaining. But as soon as both of you are there, you turtle up. What's up with that ? Are you allergic to each other ?

 

[Slowvehicle]

Of course it is.

If you take a non-controversial situation -- that the followers of Jesus actually were followers of Jesus -- and propose an alternate scenario for which no evidence exists and which doesn't actually cohere, then it would help your case at least somewhat if there were some precedent for scenarios like that.

But when there are no precedents either, then you've got a handful of nothing.

...one of these highlighted things is not like the other...

The claim that there was, in fact, a Jesus as described in the NT is, in fact, a "contorversial" claim.

The claim that first-century xianists were, in fact, "followers" of an actual person; to say nothing of an actual 'god', is, in fact, "controversial".

The claim that the contradictory reports collected into the NT do, in fact, represent "evidence" about the acts, "message", or even existence of an actual 'god' is, in fact, controversial.

It is actually the contradictory accounts of the NT for which no independent evidence exists (and much contrary evidence does exist), and which do not cohere.

I do agree that it provides you with a handful of nothing.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Edited by kmortis: 

Removed personal comment

Wait. Are you actually claiming that "authority" does make a claim represent reality?

This explains much...

 

[Belz...]

Hans has proven himself to be a true believer in Jesus Myth, and will endlessly run around picking at straws -- failing to understand that they're immaterial -- and won't accept anything that confronts his pre-determined beliefs, which are based on reading crank lit.

How do you tell crank lit from the rest ? I mean, I already know you won't watch videos if you think they are crank, but how do you determine that they are without watching ?

But if you're interested in what we were trying to discuss, probably the most succinct thing I can do is to quote Bernhard Anderson:

Thanks !

So when the early Christians of the first century tell stories in which Jesus speaks of the Son of Man who will come in power, they're talking about this particular apocalyptic figure, using the language of prophetic scripture.

Ok, how does this relate to the historicity of Jesus, though ?

The letters date from a time when contemporaries of Jesus, referenced in the letters, still lived, sometime in the middle of the first century.

Date as in they have been dated ?

A. The group to which he converted were, in fact, followers of a holy man called Jesus.

B. There was no Jesus but somehow they believed there was.

C. They were lying.

Well, other than the fact that people do lie all the time, I don't think you give B enough credit.

In fact, Paul is the only one who mentions such a meeting, right ? I mean, the gospels don't mention Paul of course, etc. So if, in fact, Jesus was a celestial being who, after his demise, appeared to a select few to give them the 'good news', according to the story Paul was workig from, then he could claim to have met them even though they really, you know, didn't exist.

 

[Belz...]

What "previous versions"?

You mean imaginary previous versions of an imaginary myth which is not needed to explain any evidence in the first place?

Well, you know like Q is a previous version for Luke and Matthew, supposedly. You think Paul was the originator of Christianity ? Then, if he didn't have a real vision from god, then he must've gotten that from somewhere.

Anyway, what I mean is that if you're writing a text by using in part a previous set of myths, sayings or works, then you may feel you have to make some corrections because of the questions it raises or the 'plot holes', so to speak. You know people are going to spot them so you alter your own version to make sure to cover them without making too major alterations that might people go "hey, where did that other part go ?", maybe.

And if those myths were pre-existing in the rabbinical commentaries, why did they not cite them, and why had all this not been worked out before?

Why did who not cite them ?

But bottom line, you can't take a non-problem, then propose an unnecessary alternative scenario for that non-problem, then propose utterly lost traditions as evidence for that scenario.

But there is a problem: absolutely no evidence that Jesus was a real person. So either he was entirely nonimportant, to the point that he probably wasn't even executed by Pilate, and he was just godified by his followers, or he was just made up to fit the times. On the one hand, one feels more likely, and on the other, we remove a needless entity. Both are fine for me, but nobody can say that it's a done deal issue.

 

[Belz...]

Wow! You know more about it than the profs at Princeton!

Argument from authority. Hans at least made some effort to address your post, Piggy, despite the bad blood you guys seem to have. Can't you respond in kind ?

(I can't believe _I_, of all people, am attempting to moderate this discussion.)

 

[Belz...]

Which is why you should not be listening to Carrier.

Really, Piggy, you're making this unnecessarily hard for me. I shouldn't listen to carrier because he disagrees with you, is basically what you just said.

Paul says clearly that Jesus was born of woman

Maybe you should watch that video.

But when there are no precedents either, then you've got a handful of nothing.

First, there are precedents of made-up gods being made into historical people. Hercules, for instance.

 

[HansMustermann]

Yes, you can. Instead of simply telling him you can't speak to him, speak to him.

I mean, whenever any one of you two is posting in a thread about this topic, your posts are both compelling and entertaining. But as soon as both of you are there, you turtle up. What's up with that ? Are you allergic to each other ?

I must admit that I AM getting allergic to being told I'm a CT-er if I don't trust some authority. If an authority, or anyone else, is right -- and they might be -- then it's by virtue of showing the evidence to support their conclusion, not by virtue of anything else, being an authority included. Hence, if it's that unassailable, it should be quite easy to just present whatever argument makes that conclusion so watertight. NOT just insist that one can't disagree with an authority. It doesn't work that way in any scientific domain.

Well, you know like Q is a previous version for Luke and Matthew, supposedly.

Actually, it's just SOME source that made its way into both Matthew and Luke (as the accepted chronological order goes). We don't even know it's not just Matthew (as Carrier and a few others seem to favour.) In any case, even if it's earlier than Matthew, which is a big IF, we don't know if it's also earlier than Mark, much less that it's earlier than Paul.

Really, nobody saw Q, it's not mentioned by any church father, it contains (in as much as we can reconstruct it from Matthew and Luke) no references to identifiable historical events that might help date it, etc. We don't know who wrote it, when, or what else was in it.

Even the points usually made about it, like, "Q has no mention of the crucifixion", are actually wild and unsupportable guesses. The parts we reconstructed have no mention of that, but we don't know what was in the rest of it, or why wasn't it included. E.g., whether it actually had no crucifixion or resurrection, or Matthew and Luke just didn't feel like copying some redundant parts that were already in Mark anyway.

You think Paul was the originator of Christianity ? Then, if he didn't have a real vision from god, then he must've gotten that from somewhere.

... in as much as one can say Charles Manson must have gotten his racial revolution ideas from SOMEWHERE. In his case, though, it was just delusions of reference in Beatles songs. Seriously, he thought that Beatles songs contain cryptic messages to him, about something they never actually sung about. That's what schizophrenia will do to ya. Whether or not that's the case with Paul too, well, that's a good question.

Which is another reason to doubt Paul's message, once one realizes that he still has conversations with ghostly Jesus and describes half a dozen textbook paranoid schizophrenia symptoms in himself, including, yes, delusions of reference, as in finding messages to/about himself in OT fragments about something completely unrelated. Finding messages to them in something completely unrelated is what those people do. James could have basically said, "get the hell out of here" or "who the hell is this guy and what does he want from me?", and Paul could have understood that it means "go preach the gospel to the gentiles." Or whatever.

I mean, just like one can say that Paul wouldn't make up X, Y and Z, one can say that Charles Manson wouldn't make up messages from the Beatles. And indeed, he didn't. His sick brain just twisted something else into a hidden message to him.

So, anyway, maybe he did talk to some guys called Peter and James from some pre-existing church, and improbably enough, so accurate was the version from his hallucination, that those had nothing to correct or add to it. (Yeah right) Or maybe he is lying about it. Or maybe it's just one of his delusions. We don't really know.

 

[IanS]

But that last bit is false. Nobody in the academic community studying the ancient near east believes that Paul's letters are "quite definitely fiction".

Well, ... Paul is of course famous for have met an already dead Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus. That was clearly fiction, was it not.

In Corinthians, I believe Paul also refers to a vision he had when transported to the what he claimed was the third heaven. That too would of course be fictional.

Everything that Paul tells us about Jesus was apparently revealed to him directly by the lord himself. That is fictional isn’t it.

From what Paul write in Corinthians, it’s seems clear that Paul is preaching the same message found in the books of Enoch and Proverbs, where Paul associates Jesus with the notion of God’s “Wisdom” presented as a “hypostasised personified figure”. That sort of belief is fictional, isn’t it? (see for example Ellegard, Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ, p17).

The accounts of Paul, in so far as they make mention of Jesus, are not historical earthly records, but fictional visionary beliefs.

 

[Craig B]

Well, ... Paul is of course famous for have met an already dead Jesus in a vision on the road to Damascus. That was clearly fiction, was it not.

Did he ever go to Damascus? Did he write the letters attributed to him? Some he did not. These are fictional.

In Corinthians, I believe Paul also refers to a vision he had when transported to the what he claimed was the third heaven. That too would of course be fictional.

Did he write letters to the Corinthians? Did he have a community of followers there?

Everything that Paul tells us about Jesus was apparently revealed to him directly by the lord himself. That is fictional isn’t it.

Yes, because he never met Jesus, and had reasons not to obtain information about him from the Jerusalem Jesus people. Were they fictional? That is a really important question.

From what Paul write in Corinthians, it’s seems clear that Paul is preaching the same message found in the books of Enoch and Proverbs, where Paul associates Jesus with the notion of God’s “Wisdom” presented as a “hypostasised personified figure”. That sort of belief is fictional, isn’t it? (see for example Ellegard, Jesus, One Hundred Years Before Christ, p17).

Here is the question to be answered: did Paul believe that this Jesus had recently been alive on earth? Had been put to death on earth, and had subsequently been resurrected?

The accounts of Paul, in so far as they make mention of Jesus, are not historical earthly records, but fictional visionary beliefs.

Yes. We know. Now, was there a Paul who had (or simulated) these visionary experiences? Did he have followers to whom he sent an account of them?