What counts as a historical Jesus?

[IanS]

I'm late on this thread obviously, and also obviously, I really cannot be bothered trawling back through 4000+ posts, so my apologies if anything I post now has all been posted before.

I wan't to get back to the original question "What counts as a Historical Jesus?"

As far as I am aware, there is not the tiniest scrap of evidence that Jesus Christ ever existed. There are...

► no first person writings or documents attributed to the hand of Jesus,
► no contemporaneous writings by first hand witnesses,
► no physical articles that belonged to him (the Shroud has been proven a 13thC fake),
► no buildings or works attributed to him.
► no contemporaneous Roman records of Pilate executing someone called Jesus,
► no contemporaneous writings anywhere that even mention Jesus Christ

Further, even what we have is of highly dubious veracity...

► every claim that a real person called Jesus existed is second or third hand,
► every document referring to Jesus can only be dated to many years after his alleged death.
► every piece of documentation, be they scrolls or written accounts of any kind, come from either unknown sources, or from people whose own reality of existence is unproven.

In addition, there are numerous sources of "information" about Jesus that are fraudulent, mythical, obvious works of fantasy, or wild and unreliable far-fetched interpretations of the writings of others.

In short, all the evidence is hearsay, and for the critical thinker and the skeptical mind, hearsay evidence is not evidence at all.

So, I will rephrase the question from "What counts as a Historical Jesus?" to "What evidence would I find acceptable that a Historical Jesus really existed?"

1. Written, contemporaneous records of the Romans showing that Pontius Pilate was responsible for executing a man called Jesus, along with two common thieves, approximately 2000 years ago in Palestine.

2. First person eye witness accounts of things that Jesus did, actually written by the eyewitness, and written at the time.

3. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]First person eye witness accounts of the crucifixion, again written by the actual witness.

4. Multiple, independent sources for all of the above.
[/FONT]

I see. Mmm. No hearsay. That is, not only is hearsay evidence not adequate in a court of law it is not evidence at all even in studies of the ancient world!! And the fantastic detail of the evidence you would require - contemporaneous official written records and multiply attested accounts personally written by the hand of eyewitnesses of the events related therein - could somebody please tell me for what person or event in ancient times we have anything like such material? Are you being serious?

Yep, that, from smartcooky, is a pretty good and clear summary of what most of us have been pointing out here for the past 100 pages (that, and a great deal more is pointed out and explained in detail in the well known books by authors like Well’s, Ellegard, Helms - see my previous refs to those books).


Craig - you seem to be incredulous that anyone should say that the hearsay writing we have is really not good enough as credible reliable/objective evidence in the case of Jesus. And that Smartcooky’s list seems to you to be unrealistic to the extent that we don’t appear to demand that sort of evidence for other important figures in ancient history.

Firstly, as far as “hearsay” claims are concerned - as I have explained here before (despite 8-Bits disputes) - whatever you want to call it, testimony of that sort, coming from anonymous writers who say that other anonymous people believed various things about Jesus, is not reliable as genuine evidence of the events, for all the reasons already understood and agreed by democratic legal jury processes. It’s simply not reliable or trustworthy evidence at all, even where contemporary known court witnesses are making claims about events they say happened only days before … let alone a situation like the biblical writing where entirely anonymous gospel authors are writing centuries after the death of Jesus to report testimony from entirely unknown sources who continuously make all manner of obviously untrue claims about miracles & the supernatural.

Secondly, on the requirement for verifiable contemporary eye-witness accounts - Jesus is a unique case and far off the scale of importance to any other figure in all of mans history (certainly amongst ancient historical leaders).

Nobody today cares about whether Julius Caesar (or whoever) really did all the things attributed to him. That is of absolutely zero direct consequence to the lives of almost everyone alive today. But Jesus is the basis of a Christian religion which directly influences the daily lives of millions if not billions of Christians today, and indirectly has huge consequences for the daily lives of absolutely everyone on the planet.

A figure as important as that most definitely does need a much better standard of evidence than other historical figures of virtually no consequence.

 

[IanS]

I think we need to attend to hearsay, nevertheless, in historical studies. What else is the written work of a historian who depends on anything other than his or her own experience as a source?

In the case of many important historical figures, eg Roman emperors, various kings and queens etc., we are not relying on anonymous hearsay reporting stories from anonymous witnesses. We have such things as vast archaeological evidence, as well as contemporary writing about all manner of domestic and international political affairs, military conquests etc.

But even if we had none of that, those ancient Kings, Queens, Emperors, Rulers etc. are of no importance at all to most people alive today.

Jesus is however of vast importance to everyone alive today. So that's why, in his unique case, it matters that we should have a careful look at what the claimed evidence is really supposed to be.

And when you do that, the claimed evidence appears virtually non-existent.

That's the problem.

 

[Belz...]

I think we need to attend to hearsay, nevertheless, in historical studies. What else is the written work of a historian who depends on anything other than his or her own experience as a source?

Well if he names his sources and the works he used, then it's not hearsay.

 

[Belz...]

So famous, and yet not one among all of that multitude of followers, who must have numbered in the tens of thousands, recorded anything about him.

Correction: no such record of him has survived to this day. There might have been at some point such a record, but we don't have it.

 

[ddt]

I think we need to attend to hearsay, nevertheless, in historical studies. What else is the written work of a historian who depends on anything other than his or her own experience as a source?

But I do agree it would be nice to have what smartcooky demands, maybe with a bit of DNA thrown in! For which ancient figure do we have the like of this, I ask?

Tutankhamun? Certainly his DNA.
Akhenaten? Certainly much of his diplomatic correspondence with other kings.
Rameses II? Certainly the account of his resounding victory over the Hittites at Kadesh.

 

[Craig B]

Tutankhamun? Certainly his DNA.
Akhenaten? Certainly much of his diplomatic correspondence with other kings.
Rameses II? Certainly the account of his resounding victory over the Hittites at Kadesh.

Pharaohs got pickled. So they, exceptionally, are still available for study.

 

[IanS]

Pharaohs got pickled. So they, exceptionally, are still available for study.

So their DNA and their actual remains are not evidence of a once living person then?

 

[Craig B]

Well if he names his sources and the works he used, then it's not hearsay.

Here is the wiki definition.

Hearsay is information gathered by one person from another person concerning some event, condition, or thing of which the first person had no direct experience.

Nothing about, "it's not hearsay if he names the sources".

 

[Belz...]

Here is the wiki definition. Nothing about, "it's not hearsay if he names the sources".

So in your opinion "hearsay" means everything that isn't your own experience ? So why is that word even useful ?

Webster says:

- Rumor
- Hearsay evidence: evidence based not on a witness's personal knowledge but on another's statement not made under oath.

Doesn't exactly fit with what you just posted.

 

[Craig B]

So their DNA and their actual remains are not evidence of a once living person then?

Of course they are! Exceptionally good evidence too. What do you mean by your question?

 

[Craig B]

So in your opinion "hearsay" means everything that isn't your own experience ? So why is that word even useful ?

Webster says:

- Rumor
- Hearsay evidence: evidence based not on a witness's personal knowledge but on another's statement not made under oath.

Doesn't exactly fit with what you just posted.

That's because you have defined "hearsay evidence". That is a matter of legal definition of what may be presented in a court. Until now, we have been defining "hearsay". Please check previous posts.

 

[ddt]

Pharaohs got pickled. So they, exceptionally, are still available for study.

I immediately admit I went for the low-hanging fruit (to keep with the food analogies).

But moreover, the Amarna letters and the various Egyptian inscriptions show there is quite some contemporary evidence of what they did, more than 1,000 years before JC. We even have quite some insight about how the relative nobodies who built the pyramids, even farther back, went about from surviving inscriptions.

We also have two surviving copies of Hammurabi's code, the Cyrus cylinder and a sundry of Mesopotamian, Ugarit and what-not clay tablets which give first-hand, contemporary evidence about their kings, princes, their economy, and many more aspects of their civilization.

We also have a huge cache of letters of Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrian's wall, who had to defend the Empire against your ancestors.

What we don't have is a single ostrakon with a Twitter-style message "Jesus just preached the meek shall inherit the earth. Deep!"

 

[Craig B]

I immediately admit I went for the low-hanging fruit (to keep with the food analogies).

But moreover, the Amarna letters and the various Egyptian inscriptions show there is quite some contemporary evidence of what they did, more than 1,000 years before JC. We even have quite some insight about how the relative nobodies who built the pyramids, even farther back, went about from surviving inscriptions.

We also have two surviving copies of Hammurabi's code, the Cyrus cylinder and a sundry of Mesopotamian, Ugarit and what-not clay tablets which give first-hand, contemporary evidence about their kings, princes, their economy, and many more aspects of their civilization.

We also have a huge cache of letters of Roman soldiers stationed at Hadrian's wall, who had to defend the Empire against your ancestors.

What we don't have is a single ostrakon with a Twitter-style message "Jesus just preached the meek shall inherit the earth. Deep!"

No indeed, and for many people we don't have such data. Your fruit is still on the lower branches. Kings in societies where the writing medium was clay or stone.

 

[maximara]

Here is the wiki definition. Nothing about, "it's not hearsay if he names the sources".

Wiki is a joke when there is no reference to back it up anything it claims and even when there is a reference sometimes the reference doesn't back up what is being claimed.

As stated before the Oxford dictionary definition of hearsay is "information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor"

I take the Oxford dictionary over anything wiki says. In fact if anyone spots that idiocy I hope they use the Oxford dictionary to fix the article.

 

[ddt]

No indeed, and for many people we don't have such data. Your fruit is still on the lower branches. Kings in societies where the writing medium was clay or stone.

I reached for higher branches with mentioning the pyramid builders.

I also mentioned ostraka, pot shards, which were a very common throwaway writing medium in JC's times. Thousands of them have been found. If one were found which ties the name Jesus with one of his sayings in the gospels, I would have no doubt whatsoever He really existed.

I could also mention Caecilius, banker in Pompeii prior to the Vesuvius outbreak, and who was popularized in the Cambridge Latin course.

Or I could mention any of the Roman soldiers whose epitaph we've found, with their name and career on it.

There's a lot more than just kings and rulers in societies with stone as sole writing medium.

 

[IanS]

Of course they are! Exceptionally good evidence too. What do you mean by your question?

Precisely. So, in fact, we do have perfectly good objectively convincing evidence for the existence of other figures in antiquity (figures of vastly less importance than Jesus). But as most of us keep pointing out ... no such evidence of Jesus.

And that, despite the fact that at one point in this thread Jesus was being called the "best attested person in all ancient history".

He might actually be the "worst" attested evidenced famous person in all history, but he certainly is not the "best".

 

[maximara]

(snip)

Craig - you seem to be incredulous that anyone should say that the hearsay writing we have is really not good enough as credible reliable/objective evidence in the case of Jesus. And that Smartcooky’s list seems to you to be unrealistic to the extent that we don’t appear to demand that sort of evidence for other important figures in ancient history.

As is pointed out in the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ article over at Rationalwiki the "There is more evidence for Jesus than for (insert famous ancient person here)" is a major favorite in the HJ crowd.

In fact we got a variant of that in this very thread by Stone which I proceeded to totally trounce in Post 3039 but then again Stone gave us the ever so popular and disgusting comparison to the Holocaust which I proceeded to totally trash in Post 3873

"The non sequitur with all of these and similar comparisons is that the historical person or event in question is in better shape in terms of provenance than what exists for Jesus. This is especially true after the introduction of printing into the Western world around 1439 — all the problems inherent with hand copied manuscripts (errors and limited numbers of copies) begin to disappear. This is what makes comparisons of Jesus to Napoleon or the Holocaust ridiculous strawmen — there is far more information for them than has ever existed for Jesus."

I could see comparisons to Apollonius of Tyana or Sun Tzu but Plato, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and the Holocaust? Really guys? Really?

 

[IanS]

That's because you have defined "hearsay evidence". That is a matter of legal definition of what may be presented in a court. Until now, we have been defining "hearsay". Please check previous posts.

Just in the interests of getting some things clear here - what a witness presents in court is not "evidence". The term "evidence" is being used there as court "shorthand". What the witness actually provides is "testimony" given or offered as "evidence".

It's then up to a jury (in Jury trials, which was the comparison that was being made) to decide if the testimony they heard, is in their opinion genuinely evidence of what the witness was claiming.

What is normally ruled inadmissible, and not put before the jury in UK jury trials (as opposed to lower UK courts which might sometimes admit lesser standards of testimony, eg small claims courts or magistrates courts hearing less important cases such as disputes about garden fences, motoring offences etc), is testimony from a witness who describes seeing or hearing something, but then admits it was not he who saw or heard it, but instead that he had been told by someone else that other people and seen and heard things.

In the Jesus case the hearsay nature of the gospel testimony is, however, far worse than that, because it comes from an anonymous witness (ie the gospel writer) who reports stories/testimony from another anonymous person or persons, who are said to have witnessed physically impossible supernatural events.

If we, like a jury, are considering that sort of testimony offered to us as evidence that Jesus did any of described things, then unless our standards are very low indeed, we have to reject out of hand the offer of utterly inadequate testimony of that sort. And especially so in a case of absolutely huge importance.

That’s why, whether we call it “hearsay” or not, religious gospel testimony of that quality, coming from Christian religious copies made centuries after any such events, is virtually worthless as evidence in the case of Jesus.

 

[Craig B]

... And that, despite the fact that at one point in this thread Jesus was being called the "best attested person in all ancient history".

Please take that up with the person who called Jesus that. I don't.

 

[Belz...]

That's because you have defined "hearsay evidence". That is a matter of legal definition of what may be presented in a court. Until now, we have been defining "hearsay". Please check previous posts.

Gosh I wish people actually read my posts:

- Rumor

Rumors are hearsay. Extensive documentation of historical events is not.

It seems to me like you're desperately trying to alter the meaning of hearsay so that the criticisms of historical Jesus studies are somehow negated. That doesn't sound like a good way to argue for the HJ theory.