What counts as a historical Jesus?

[davefoc]

Dave, I have to point out that you're embarrassing yourself.

What Jayson says is correct -- Jesus is amazingly well attested, and has I believe an unrivaled quality of attestation for any commoner in that period or earlier.

If you don't know that, well, then you don't know that.

But for you to pretend that you do know enough to object to that statement -- well… I'll just say it doesn't reflect well, especially on a skeptical forum.

One of the reasons that I don't find your approach persuasive is that you go so far out of your way to avoid acknowledging facts which are inconvenient for the story you are pitching.

Anybody that has made a concerted objective effort to find reliable evidence to support the existence of an HJ realizes there just aren't a lot of solid data points to hang one's hat on. There is not a single contemporary attestation to the HJ that exists today. There is not a single non Christian attestation to the HJ that dates to the first century except for perhaps the very shaky Josephus stuff.

There is almost no reliable attestation to the HJ in the Gospels as you well know. What looks like attestation to an HJ by four independent Gospel authors is at best independent attestation by one author. And obviously that single attestation is by somebody that writes in a different language than the HJ is likely to have spoken, was not an eyewitness to any of the events he describes, didn't live in the same area that he writes about, is clearly making up the bulk of what he writes and he provides not a single suggestion as to what the source of his claims are.

Have you ever considered why there is so little reliable attestation to an HJ? Yes, the fact that he isn't mentioned by secular authors of the time means that the hypothetical HJ must have had a fairly low profile, but still when the demand for Jesus fiction took off there were lots of authors to supply the market and yet when Jesus was actually supposed to have been walking around nobody wrote about him or at least nobody bothered to save what was written. What's with that?

Those of us in this thread that think the existence of an HJ is more likely than not are left with not much more than Paul's epistles to support that idea. In the real world, people lie, people are mistaken, people are misinterpreted, people are crazy, sometimes people didn't even write the stuff that is attributed to them. But in the Piggy world none of these things are possible for Paul. And in the Piggy world long winded, evidence poor narratives about what might have been serve as proof of what was.

 

[pakeha]

No. That's not my claim.

What I'm saying is that he clearly appears to be an end-timer. And a megalomaniac.

But since the "scammer" idea has been studied and rejected, and since the evidence does not point in that direction, then until and unless someone comes up with a real hypothesis -- something more than "boy, that sounds dodgy to my 21st century ears" -- I see no need to discuss it.

Paul is certainly a strange person. But his letters reveal someone who seems to believe that he has been appointed by God to bring about the Day of the Lord by converting a critical mass of gentiles.

And he doesn't seem to be getting much of anything from his congregations.

In fact, he reminds them of how he and his companions worked while in their cities so as not to be a burden -- something that could not plausibly be a lie.

Aside from the collection for the poor in Jerusalem -- which happens to fit perfectly into the MAV of Paul as a true believer -- there doesn't appear to be any sort of money involved here, and it's doubtful that Paul intended to keep that money, given his conversations about it.

As always, if we go with the most likely scenarios indicated by the evidence we have, then Paul is not a scammer.

But even if he were running a scam, how would that contradict HJ theory? Just because a scam artist starts pulling affinity fraud among a group of believers, this does not somehow indicate that this pre-existing group of believers formed around an imaginary person.

If I pretend to be a skeptic in order to run some kind of affinity fraud among JREF'ers, does this cast doubt on the reality of James Randi?

I think not.

Hmmm, Piggy.
This gets us nowhere wit hthe subject of an HJ.
Sorry to have been so open on the subject of scamming.

Really - I thought that you might be interested in pursuing your studies of these ancient texts! Well, stay at least "open" for this radical course of action.

But I am.
Please recommend some links for further reading, llwyd.

 

[eight bits]

Piggy

But even if he were running a scam, how would that contradict HJ theory?

The discussion is about evidence. You have offered into evidence the written testimony of Paul, which includes his description about his own activities, These activities impinge on the people he has suggested might have met the historical Jesus who counts.

Inquiry into the character of your star witness is facially relevant. Clarifying the relationship between Paul and the James Gang, the alleged associates of a historial Jesus who counts, is facially relevant.

Depending on how the inquiries turn out, the results may tend to contradict, corroborate or leave unilluminated the hypothesis that there was a historical Jesus who counts.

Your question as you phrased it, then, is at best premature.

 

[tsig]

But it goes farther than that. Have you ever known a scam in which several dozen scammers are running around and arguing with each other in front of the marks about what it is they're actually doing?

Or a scam in which the scammers live in poverty?

I haven't.

The Mormons.

 

[tsig]

Thanks for the link.

However, I'm not digging around in the 18th or 19th century closets. Kinda pointless.

We're supposed to get advanced degrees in history but you refuse to read a book?

 

[tsig]

It hasn't been ignored. And no one's been insulted, except for thousands of researchers of the Ancient Near East, who've been called biased and incompetent and even fanatical multiple times on this thread without ONE SINGLE SHRED of evidence to support such claims.

Look at Jayson's summary of the situation upthread.

Citations by scholars are shouted down as "argument from authority".

Attempts to provide context so that evidence can be understood are decried as pointless rhetoric.

Arbitrary demands are made for extremely rare types of evidence and for evidence which no one actually expects (e.g. writing from Jesus's own hand).

Demands are made to produce the actual core evidence so people can make up their own minds, despite the fact that (a) this is physically impossible, (b) the people making the demands aren't qualified to examine it anyway, and (c) doing so would take hundreds of pages of posts, making the mere background posts look like tweets.



No, it's perfectly true.

Go back to my last "pimp post" and start clicking.

It's been shown clearly that Paul did believe Jesus was human.

It's been shown why it makes no sense to claim that Paul made up the other apostles (the letters could not have been sent to anyone had that been the case).

It's been shown why James is most likely Jesus's actual brother, and that even if the term is honorific he still would have known Jesus.

It's been shown that the early table ritual cannot be something abhorrent to Jews (i.e. they knew they were drinking wine in remembrance of a martyred prophet, and had enough sense to know they weren't drinking blood) and that the Jewish flavor of it was only later dropped by gentile groups (e.g. the community of Mark).

And much more.




If you think that you can actually evaluate raw evidence from the Ancient Near East without a boatload of explanation and background, then you flatter yourself.

We're talking about a dead culture speaking dead languages thousands of years ago.

And you imagine that you can simply drift in, glance at a few artifacts, and come to some reasonable conclusion.

That's a bit delusional.

The evidence is so voluminous that you can't physically post It and if you did we wouldn't be able to understand it anyway?

Once again the study of HJ seems to be a special subject, not able to be expounded to anyone with less than post graduate degree.

A wise man said that if you can't explain a subject in simple terms you don't understand it yourself.

 

[tsig]

Dear me, llwyd, I had no idea disagreeing with the academic concesus would earn me this advise: go publish!

Unless you've earned graduate degrees in linguistics and history you can't even be allowed to see the evidence.

Reminds me of the Lensman series where if you had less than a fifth order mind you couldn't know the Plan.*

*IIRC

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct...=JovmcPcksWClyYN7PgNciQ&bvm=bv.47534661,d.aWc

 

[pakeha]

^

 

[Belz...]

Dear me, llwyd, I had no idea disagreeing with the academic concesus would earn me this advise: go publish!

Well it's another wonderful and easy way of dismissing you. Get a PhD, trust the experts, publish a paper.

 

[Belz...]

What Jayson says is correct -- Jesus is amazingly well attested, and has I believe an unrivaled quality of attestation for any commoner in that period or earlier.

Yeah, in the sense that he's better attested than someone who we never heard about. But that's not what we're talking about, is it ?

I mean, what attestation do we have ? Josephus ? Nope, those are interpolations. Suetonius ? It's a stretch to even claim they refered to Jesus.

What about the gospels, then ? John's very very late. Luke is probably based on Matthew, Matthew obviously on Mark, and for all we know Mark, written a couple of generations after the fact, could have taken stuff from Paul and made the rest up from hearsay or just from his ass. We just don't know because obviously Mark wasn't from the region and didn't know dick about what had happened.

So that leaves us Paul, who basically doesn't say a thing of import about Jesus, and never met the man himself. I don't believe for a second that he had a vision, so I'm more of the mind that he saw more money in joining the religious bandwagon than fighting it. In any case, he didn't get info on Jesus from dreams (and if he did, that's completely useless) so he probably just took some more hearsay and ran with that. Assuming he actually met people who knew Jesus, he is silent about any information that he gleaned from them.

But were Peter and James really eyewitnesses ? I don't think Paul just made them up, mind you. But first, we know that throughout history, "mother", "father", "son", "brother" and "cousin" have been used metaphorically and quite liberally. Are we at least reasonably sure that by "brother" he meant "biological brother" and not "spiritual brother" ? Because it could just mean that James was the top honcho of the Jerusalem branch. As for Peter, the only reason we think he's a witness is because he fits the much later gospel accounts, which probably used Paul to create their characters anyway, so we can't really use them for confirmation.

What's the attestation, here, really ? Again, outside of Paul we have zero people who we can even claim might have met witnesses to Jesus, and much of that "certainty" sounds like matching later works to me.

And even if we say that there was a real, living guy(s) who was the inspiration for the Jesus story, how much of the story is actually real ? Do we know he was anything like the gospel accounts ? The gospel writers certainly didn't know. Where does that leave us ?

And if he doesn't match the biblical Jesus in any way, is that still a historical Jesus ?

 

[Belz...]

I tried to find the thread in which I debunked Price's mythicist claims point by point a few years ago.

Unfortunately, I can't locate it.

Are you talking about this one ?

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177059

 

[Belz...]

The evidence is so voluminous that you can't physically post It and if you did we wouldn't be able to understand it anyway?

Once again the study of HJ seems to be a special subject, not able to be expounded to anyone with less than post graduate degree.

I can understand subjects even if I don't have a PhD, which makes this exercise all the more suspect.

 

[llwyd]

Unless you've earned graduate degrees in linguistics and history you can't even be allowed to see the evidence.

Well, what would you do with manuscripts in ancient Arameac and post-classical Greek? I mean literally, what would you do? I'm sure they have fascimiles available though and publications of transcripts, so you probably could see these texts without too much hassle. I'm just wondering in my small mind that what the hell would you do with them...

I mean we are talking about an established academic discipline - is it such an offence against some random internet nicks dignity to remark that if you have contradictory intrepretations you should go through peer review and publication to get any credence to them? I'm awfully sorry if I hurt feelings though...

 

[tsig]

Well, what would you do with manuscripts in ancient Arameac and post-classical Greek? I mean literally, what would you do? I'm sure they have fascimiles available though and publications of transcripts, so you probably could see these texts without too much hassle. I'm just wondering in my small mind that what the hell would you do with them...

I mean we are talking about an established academic discipline - is it such an offence against some random internet nicks dignity to remark that if you have contradictory intrepretations you should go through peer review and publication to get any credence to them? I'm awfully sorry if I hurt feelings though...

These manuscripts have evidence for a HJ?

If there's any hurt feelings it's on the HJ side of the fence because any request for evidence is met with insults, a sure sign of butt-burn.

 

[tsig]

Well, what would you do with manuscripts in ancient Arameac and post-classical Greek? I mean literally, what would you do? I'm sure they have fascimiles available though and publications of transcripts, so you probably could see these texts without too much hassle. I'm just wondering in my small mind that what the hell would you do with them...

I mean we are talking about an established academic discipline - is it such an offence against some random internet nicks dignity to remark that if you have contradictory intrepretations you should go through peer review and publication to get any credence to them? I'm awfully sorry if I hurt feelings though...

I know with your vast knowledge of all things Arameac and post-classical Greek this may come as a shock to you but there are these things called "translations' where one language is rendered in another.

 

[llwyd]

I know with your vast knowledge of all things Arameac and post-classical Greek this may come as a shock to you but there are these things called "translations' where one language is rendered in another.

I think that now that you are beginning your career as a historian you might be in for some surprises... But good luck for your journey of discovery!

 

[Aepervius]

Well, what would you do with manuscripts in ancient Arameac and post-classical Greek? I mean literally, what would you do? I'm sure they have fascimiles available though and publications of transcripts, so you probably could see these texts without too much hassle. I'm just wondering in my small mind that what the hell would you do with them...

I mean we are talking about an established academic discipline - is it such an offence against some random internet nicks dignity to remark that if you have contradictory intrepretations you should go through peer review and publication to get any credence to them? I'm awfully sorry if I hurt feelings though...

That's not what is asked.

Jayson did actually provide evidence : he cited letters. Which can then be checked, in english translation or in original language.

But piggy has constantely hidden behind the "we can't show you because you need an IQ of 32323 and 56 PHD to understand it".

You do not need that much to understand that yes, that letter posted above with Chrestus and mrudered k wise king might actually be a good reference. Sure it is an indirect one like all others, but see , we did not need the original arameic , or whatever, or even a PhD to get that document cited.

But no, nearly every time all we got is "you can't understand it , it is in greek , arameic, whatever, so why should we cite it" which is utter BS. You don#t need to understand the language of a document to CITE its author, provenance, and date, and rough content. Then the poster can make their own research if needed.

On the whatever dozen of pages of this thread, you can count the number of post citing documents on a hand by the HJ clan. And mostly it was done by Jayson so far as I can see in the last dozen of pages. Although I could be mistaken. Piggy's post are often logn rambled on how mysthicist (whoever that may be) are crank, or he needs to go back hundred of year before JC to explain stuff or whatever. After a while you read diagonally whatever he write.

 

[Aepervius]

I think that now that you are beginning your career as a historian you might be in for some surprises... But good luck for your journey of discovery!

AS if the "vast majority" of historien which hold that J mostly existed read those greek text or arameic test. Youa re kidding right ? They almost certainly trusted a few translation by other fellow.

Sure if one want to DISPUTE the translation the knowledge is needed. But again that is not what is required.

What is /was/will be required is a simple list of document purporting the existence of J by contemporary or similar. Like jayson's cite. Or other cite in thsi thread.

And so far as I can see , they mostly support the existence of a cult which believed into the existence of J. But as the Frum cult shows, this is not a 100% certainty as piggy want us to swallow.

 

[Belz...]

I think that now that you are beginning your career as a historian you might be in for some surprises... But good luck for your journey of discovery!

It could very well be that, if any of us were "serious" historians, we'd come to the same conclusion as the consensus.

However, I doubt I would ever say that I am so certain that Jesus existed in some and such way that the alternatives aren't even worth considering anymore. That's far too strong a claim.

Or perhaps it's not. But then, if it is that strong, we should be able to at least get a layman's version of the evidence for us to examine, right.







Right ?

 

[llwyd]

That's not what is asked.

Do you understand what it means that study of history is an academic discipline? Do you understand what it means to study history? Do you understand how a scholarly consensus is formed and changed? If you want to be able to make meaningful independent judgements, you should at the very least be well versed in the scientific literature on the subject. If you demand direct access to evidence, then you should be able to understand that evidence, first hand. You can change the scholarly consensus: it's easy, peer review and publication and the following debate and further publications. This thread is just about random lay people having their personal hobby horses and obsessions aired on an anonymous net forum.

So, first, go and read, and then if you want to change the consensus go and study and publish. That's all that can be meaningfully said from the point of view of the formal and academic and professional study of history. That is really all. That's it.