What counts as a historical Jesus?

[IanS]

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.

Josephus is quite hopeless as evidence of Jesus. For a start Josephus was not even born at the time of the purported events, so any account from Josephus can only be hearsay. But worse still - we do not actually know what, if anything, Josephus originally wrote about Jesus, because we don't actually have any original copy of whatever Josephus wrote around 100AD. Instead all we apparently have are copies dating from the 11th century and later! That's a whopping 1000 years after Josephus had died! That's a 1000 years of continual Christian copying in which the copyists could have made all manner of alterations, additions and deletions from what is in any case only a very, very brief mention of Jesus.

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.

What are these Letters from Jews where the extant copies are actually dated to the middle of the 1st century AD? You don't mean the Christian copies of Paul’s letters? Because those are not contemporary with the life of Paul. The earliest copy we have of anything from Paul, is afaik at least circa.200AD, and since that is not scientifically dated I would not be surprised to find even that date turns out to be very optimistic.

 

[IanS]

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?

Well Paul was apparently a full time wandering religious preacher who constantly had imaginary visions and conversations with Jesus and God. So he might have believed absolutely anything that was religious.

Even today religious people believe all sorts of crazy things about the reality of miracles and prayers being answered, as well as claiming visions and hearing the voice of God etc.

But whether or not Paul believed that Jesus had once been a real living person, would not of course mean that Paul’s belief was correct. And especially not at that time and from someone who apparently could not tell earthly fact from celestial religious fiction.

So, IOW - I don’t think Paul’s Letters can possibly be taken as reliable historical accounts as far as evidence of Jesus is concerned.

 

[Belz...]

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.

I know. I was just answering Piggy's post when he seemed to doubt that there could be previous version of the myth which they had to explain away, rather than real facts that they had to explain away. He didn't address that.

 

[Craig B]

... So, IOW - I don’t think Paul’s Letters can possibly be taken as reliable historical accounts as far as evidence of Jesus is concerned.

But that's not the same as saying they are "fiction". For example, Caesar's account of the Gallic War, or Gibbon's account of the fall of the Roman Empire, might not be entirely reliable, but they are not "fiction" except where their authors intentionally told untruths.

 

[Piggy]

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

Sorry, but if you don't understand the field, and can't bring yourself to admit that, then we're going nowhere.

This is history. Ancient history. What you're asking for is ridiculous.

 

[Piggy]

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.

It's very difficult for me to believe that, when looking at letters sent between church leaders discussing church issues, you can't distinguish between the question of whether the people mentioned are likely real people, and whether or not their religious doctrine is accurate.

It's also very difficult for me to understand why you would think that this distinction is not appreciated by academics who study ancient texts.

 

[IanS]

But that's not the same as saying they are "fiction". For example, Caesar's account of the Gallic War, or Gibbon's account of the fall of the Roman Empire, might not be entirely reliable, but they are not "fiction" except where their authors intentionally told untruths.

But we are not interested in, and not talking about, what Paul say's about the existence of named places like Jerusalem or the Roman rulers of the day. We all agree that places like that and people like that were real. But none of that is evidence of Jesus. What's in dispute here is specifically whether or not Paul's accounts of Jesus are fictional.

 

[Piggy]

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'm sorry, Belz, I can't talk with him anymore.

The reason we can't talk to each other is simple: Hans is a true believer in crank ideas.

What this means is that he cannot accept evidence when it's shown to him.

The breaking point for me was when he kept saying that Paul never says Jesus was human, and I showed him the actual citations (this was on another thread) and he simply ignored the unequivocal evidence that yes Paul says unambiguously that Jesus was human, and went on with his crank claim.

You cannot talk to people like that, you cannot reason with them.

His response to Anderson is the equivalent of "Nuh-uh!" as though Hans knows better than a Princeton professor what the case is.

According to Hans, one of the most widely used undergrad textbooks -- not exactly arcana, this stuff -- is dead wrong, the guy who wrote it has no clue, and the profs and faculty in the departments that use it at accredited universities are so ignorant that they can't spot the errors and use the text anyway.

The problem is, Hans reads all this crank stuff and gets their wrong ideas stuck in his head, and when he sees an individual point, he cites the crank, and won't listen to the actual scholars -- the very same people who established all the data that his crank authors cite and misinterpret in the first place!

He ignores the fact that none of these little barbs add up to a coherent counter-theory.

He imagines that "belief" in a historical Jesus is some wild-eyed notion that only would be believed by someone who thought miracles are real.

In fact, a historical Jesus is the most boring, dull, plain Jane, everyday, garden variety theory you could possibly come up with to explain why there were, and are, followers of Jesus.

He's a dyed in the wool crank, Belz. I cannot have a discussion with him that clarifies anything or enlightens anyone, because all he'll do is keep throwing mud.

So I'm done with that.

 

[Piggy]

...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.

It would be, but since this thread concerns the historical Jesus, not the legendary Jesus, and since I was clearly (CLEARLY) referring to the latter, this is irrelevant.

.The claim that first-century xianists were, in fact, "followers" of an actual person <snip> is, in fact, "controversial".

No, it is not. Just as the reality of the Holocaust and evolution and human-caused global warming aren't really controversial.

In fact, a greater percentage of climate scientist disagree with human-caused global warming than the percentage of scholars of the ancient Near East who disagree that there was a historical Jesus.

The question of whether any god is real, that's totally tangential and irrelevant. But fyi, it's not just the scholars who happen to be Christians or Jews who agree about a historical Jesus -- the scholars who are Muslim, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, and everything else agree with them!

.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.

Please, read the thread and understand what it's about.

We're not arguing whether the miracle stories, for example, are accurate. They're not.

So the question is, would the followers of a historical Jesus as I described come to write such stories about him. The answer is: Absolutely.

And there's nothing weird or strange or miraculous about that.

 

[HansMustermann]

I'm sorry, Belz, I can't talk with him anymore.

The reason we can't talk to each other is simple: Hans is a true believer in crank ideas.

What this means is that he cannot accept evidence when it's shown to him.

You might have a case there if you actually showed any evidence. Until then, claiming that oh noes, it's just someone else who doesn't accept it, is just a lie.

All you've done so far is basically showing that one guy says that, and insist that that's it, everyone must trust that because he's an authority.

Sorry, that's not evidence. That's just a claim. No matter who says it and how qualified they may be, just saying the conclusion isn't the same thing as presenting evidence. If they're right -- and they may be -- it must be based on evidence, not just on saying the conclusion.

And they may even have some. But then show that evidence, don't just quote the conclusion and skip to the argument from authority.

So, no, it's not me who refuses to acknowledge authority, it's you who's shown none whatsoever. And lying about me won't change that.

But then I remember the wise words of Hanlon's Razor. Maybe it's not lying, but you're just too... unequipped to even understand what evidence means. Seeing that at least once your supposed evidence was linking to someone else doing a straight-up argument from authority. If that's what you mistake for evidence... yeah, you're just not equipped to have this talk.

But yes, I'm not surprised to see you proclaim victory unilaterally and stomp out when evidence is required and you have none. It seems to be a rather common tactic of those who don't actually have evidence.

 

[Piggy]

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

This explains much...

No, I'm saying that when you go around reading crank lit and refuse to read the actual scholarship and when faced with an explanation by a top academic you simply dismiss it by (erroneously) claiming that the citation is an argument from authority, then you're being willfully ignorant.

 

[HansMustermann]

So the question is, would the followers of a historical Jesus as I described come to write such stories about him. The answer is: Absolutely.

Except that's the wrong question, because it's approaching it from the wrong direction.

In fact, it's even mathematically wrong, and quite trivially so. Because essentially you're considering only one probability out of the 4 that a correct Bayesian estimate would have. And Bayes is really the only way to do the estimation from that direction. You're just considering the probability to get the evidence if the hypothesis was correct, but not the base rate, nor the equally important probability to get the evidence if the hypothesis was NOT correct. Which, as probabilistic reasoning goes, it's as wrong as you can possibly get. Probably the only way to reason more wrongly would be to pull out an ouija board.

But to give some examples of how broken that is as a criterion, try this:

- would the brothers Grimm, if they knew a historical Cinderella, write that kind of story about her? Absolutely.

But sadly we know there was none, and the story actually dates all the way back to ancient Egypt, and it was originally about a slave. So, you know, we can be pretty sure that the brothers Grimm weren't that old, nor were any people relaying accurate information.

- would the kind of "historical Innsmouth" I've constructed a few pages back make several people comment about the hotel and the locals and the fish smell like in The Worst Hotel? Again, absolutely.

But again we know it's actually just a work of fiction and a bit of fanfic based on it.

- would an uneducated sailor describe a historical R'lyeh (the sunken city from Call Of Cthulhu) which actually has the space-time distortion hypothesized in the arxiv paper I linked, the way it is described in the Call Of Cthulhu? Well, according to at least one actual phyiscist (see that arxiv paper) absolutely. That's exactly the kind of description and time warp you'd get if someone actually entered such a distortion.

But again we know it's just a work of fiction.

Etc.

THAT is the kind of aberrations you can get when you try to estimate how likely something is to be true, in a way that's mathematically wrong.

 

[Piggy]

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 ?

How do you determine that a Truther video is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a Holocaust denier video is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a video about ancient astronauts is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a documentary about bigfoot is crank without watching it?

This stuff has been studied for well over a century now.

The study is demanding, slow, and rigorous. It requires the cooperation of linguists, archaeologists, historians, archivists, geologists, and more.

Over the decades, countless researchers have gathered manuscripts and other artifacts, studied and cataloged them painstakingly, and slowly pieced together what we now know… as well as what we suspect, and what we know we don't know.

Do you have any idea how much work it takes to analyze the meaning of even a single passage of ancient text?

Different versions must be studied -- for their physical and linguistic properties -- and placed in context with who knows how many other versions, and those placed in context with the entire literature of the era, and the literature in the context of the archaeology, geology, politics, even climatology and psychology.

It's a massive effort, performed by a host of highly qualified and experienced people. Nobody can do it alone.

Within that world, the extremely high probability of the existence of a historical Jesus is well established. And really, if you know even the basics of the field, it's clear that a historical Jesus is entirely non-controversial.

The Jesus Myth stuff never held together. It was never a serious theory, or even hypothesis. It's riddled with errors, most of them painfully obvious.

And they all repeat the same errors, which they pick up from each other.

Within scholarship of the Ancient Near East, nobody bothers with Jesus Myth stuff. No academics read Bart Ehrman's books on the subject, for example, for the same reason physicists don't read debunkings of crank physics.

Academic books on the topic are based on the established scholarship, so nobody debates whether Jesus lived, because it's already been settled (as far as history is ever settled). Academic books focus on broadening our understanding by, for example, examining the implications of current archaeology to our understanding of what real life was like back then, or noting parallels between what Christian writers claimed Jesus said and passages in the targumim (which preserve the Aramaic rabbinical traditions of the time) that do not appear in Biblical literature.

That's how I know that any Jesus Myth video is crank.

And sure enough, the first two points brought up from the video have both been thoroughly debunked for some time.

Because I know what the actual scholarship is, I can guarantee you that if there is anything in that video I haven't seen (which I doubt) it will also be wrong.

 

[Piggy]

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

It doesn't directly relate. It was one of those tangents.

The original issue concerned the titles Son of Man and Son of God.

Being called a Son of God in that day and time was certainly an exalted title. But Son of Man, as the Christians used it and as it was used in the traditions of Danielian and Enochian prophecy, was even more exalted.

These days, people tend to think that Son of God was a unique title for Jesus that surpassed all other titles one could be given, but it's not the case.

In Jewish tradition, up to and including the time of Jesus, a Son of God could be a political leader, military leader, high priest, or prophet. And there wasn't just one at a time -- God could call out any number of people for a special relationship (essentially a personal covenant).

To be The Son of Man, however -- not just a son of man, which would be any and all men -- within the context of Jewish apocalyptic thinking around year 0, was to be a particular figure within the apocalyptic worldview. Specifically, the leader of the Heavenly Host when they descend from Heaven (literally) to wipe out evil and save the righteous remnant.

When Christians use the term Son of Man, that's who they're talking about.

It's doubtful that Jesus saw himself as the Son of Man, because putting Jesus in that role only makes sense after Jesus has died and, supposedly, ascended into Heaven, but it's doubtful that any of Jesus's followers expected him to die before the Day of the Lord.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Sorry, but if you don't understand the field, and can't bring yourself to admit that, then we're going nowhere.

This is history. Ancient history. What you're asking for is ridiculous.

Sorry, but if you do not understand how inquiry works, perhaps you should stick to writing fan-fic. Yaoi is popular...

You are making an idiosyncratic claim about a non-typical use of a phrase in Enoch--and have completely failed to even attempt to demonstrate such a usage in any other source.

You have taken the road of unevidenced assertion--it must be as you say it is, because you say it is as it must be.

Yes, it is silly, and naive, of you to pretend that the bible provides independent evidence for the events in the bible. The fact that an even is mentioned in the bible is evidence of no more than that it appears in the bible. Without independent evidence, it is all as fabulous as Balaam's ass, or the horde of Gerasene daemons...

 

[Craig B]

But we are not interested in, and not talking about, what Paul say's about the existence of named places like Jerusalem or the Roman rulers of the day. We all agree that places like that and people like that were real. But none of that is evidence of Jesus. What's in dispute here is specifically whether or not Paul's accounts of Jesus are fictional.

What if they are? We have been over this. Paul never met Jesus, and his account of his "revelation" is false: imaginary or mendacious. But he relates descriptions of meetings with James, and asserts that James is the brother of the Lord. Is that a lie or not? Or did he ever visit Damascus or Corinth? Or indeed was there ever any Paul, and he wasn't invented by Papias of Hierapolis or some such person?

 

[Slowvehicle]

It's very difficult for me to believe that, when looking at letters sent between church leaders discussing church issues, you can't distinguish between the question of whether the people mentioned are likely real people, and whether or not their religious doctrine is accurate.

It's also very difficult for me to understand why you would think that this distinction is not appreciated by academics who study ancient texts.

A letter that may have been written by the author to which it is attributed by faith, addressed to a church that may or may not have existed in the form, number of members, location, or confession attributed to it by tradition, is neither independent evidence of the existence of the author or the recipient. And none of it is evidence that the salvific rites and rituals embodied in the superstition are "accurate", much less reflective of reality.

 

[Slowvehicle]

It's very difficult for me to believe that, when looking at letters sent between church leaders discussing church issues, you can't distinguish between the question of whether the people mentioned are likely real people, and whether or not their religious doctrine is accurate.

It's also very difficult for me to understand why you would think that this distinction is not appreciated by academics who study ancient texts.

First, it is clear that how easy or difficult you find it to believe a fact, or adopt a superstition, is not the issue.

Second, do consider figuring out why the argumennt form authority is a logical fallacy.

A letter that may have been written by the author to which it is attributed by faith, addressed to a church that may or may not have existed in the form, number of members, location, or confession attributed to it by tradition, is neither independent evidence of the existence of the author or the recipient. And none of it is evidence that the salvific rites and rituals embodied in the superstition are "accurate", much less reflective of reality.

 

[Piggy]

Date as in they have been dated ?

Yes. Now keep in mind, this is a two-part process.

First, the copies (or fragments) themselves have to be dated. There are also a number of other questions that the examiners attempt to answer, such as where they were written and by whom and for what purpose.

In that effort, they look at the materials, how the characters are formed, the language used (not just the base language, but loanwords, dialect, etc.), references to people and places and events, stock phrases and constructions, political and religious and ethnic bias, how the wording relates to known sources, and so on.

The second stage involves placing all these copies and fragments of copies into a kind of spacetimeline, which forms a kind of funnel moving backward in time toward the original (vanished) document. At this stage, the "best version" of the original is formed… in other words, scholars piece together the most likely original text or texts. (One of Paul's letters, for example, is actually two letters spliced together in reverse chronological order.)

Of course, our best version improves over time as we find more copies, get better methods of analysis, and notice new things.

In the case of Paul's letters, they were composed in the middle of the first century.

For historical purposes, his letters are amazingly close to the source. It's very rare that we have anything like this -- letters which discuss people who actually knew the person in question, from someone who knew them and talked to them about the person.

Which isn't to say that everything Paul believed about Jesus was true, not by a long shot.

But that doesn't matter, because scholars don't read ancient texts as though they were news. They treat them as artifacts, and tease out what they can about the reality of ancient life.

 

[HansMustermann]

How do you determine that a Truther video is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a Holocaust denier video is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a video about ancient astronauts is crank without watching it?

How do you determine that a documentary about bigfoot is crank without watching it?

How indeed? Please do explain the difference between "determine" and "believe", and how can you do the former without even knowing what is said.

This stuff has been studied for well over a century now.

So has homeopathy. Does that mean you totally would "determine" one of Randi's lectures against homeopathy to be crank because it disagrees with the professors and experts on homeopathy? Yes? No? Maybe?

Would you also think it's crank to ask about their evidence, instead of just accepting the conclusion because it's said by an expert on homeopathy? Yes? No? Maybe?

Repeat after me: what the Holocaust has is EVIDENCE. You don't get to build a self-flattering analogy between your opponents and holocaust deniers, when the amount of evidence you presented makes it more of an analogy to homeopathy deniers

The study is demanding, slow, and rigorous. It requires the cooperation of linguists, archaeologists, historians, archivists, geologists, and more.

Over the decades, countless researchers have gathered manuscripts and other artifacts, studied and cataloged them painstakingly, and slowly pieced together what we now know… as well as what we suspect, and what we know we don't know.

Do you have any idea how much work it takes to analyze the meaning of even a single passage of ancient text?

Different versions must be studied -- for their physical and linguistic properties -- and placed in context with who knows how many other versions, and those placed in context with the entire literature of the era, and the literature in the context of the archaeology, geology, politics, even climatology and psychology.

It's a massive effort, performed by a host of highly qualified and experienced people. Nobody can do it alone.

Maybe so, but especially with so many people studying it, you should be able to quote some of their EVIDENCE then. Because really that's the only thing that could make their conclusion right or wrong. Not the number, not the titles, not anything else.

Plus, you know, that's a funny argument. So it's a lot of work, and apparently any one of us can't really understand and judge it... but YOU can? Seriously? On what basis? Especially since you never seem able to quote any of the evidence, and always just quote some conclusion.

It seems to me like you didn't "determine" whether anything is crank or not, you're just confusing your beliefs for "determining" anything.

Within that world, the extremely high probability of the existence of a historical Jesus is well established. And really, if you know even the basics of the field, it's clear that a historical Jesus is entirely non-controversial.

And if you know even the basics of homeopathy, you'll know that it's completely non-controversial in that field that more dilute solutions are stronger. And if you know even the basics of chiropractic, you'll know there is absolutely no controversy in the field that vertebral subluxations are the reason for a bewildering array of illnesses and symptoms. And if you know the basics of acupuncture, you'll know that chi flow is entirely non-controversial. Etc.

Consensus in a field doesn't make anything right. Evidence does. Why we can ignore eminent professors of homeopathy is the simple reason that no evidence shows them to be right.

That's how I know that any Jesus Myth video is crank.

So... just blind faith, right?