Historical Jesus

[acbytesla]

This thing is, they don't berate each other and talk down to each other, or wave the big stick around just because the other guy disagrees with him, but this is what you are doing here.

When I post on the subject of the existence or otherwise of a Historical Jesus, I do so from the position of personally not believing in his existence as a real individual, but that does NOT mean I offhandedly dismiss any discussion or opinion on the matter. I take the view that we don't actually know whether not some of the things written in the gospels are true, or whether Paul really existed, or what he was alleged to have written really was written by him, and was accurate. I simply address that which is written in the NT in much the same way that a critic writes about the characters, events and places in a fictional book or movie. I see no reason whatsoever that people cannot have a discussion about the NT's content without needing to establish its accuracy.

Furthermore, you don't actually know either - your entire methodology here appears to be that "there was no evidence for it, therefore it never happened". Carl Sagan had something to say about this... "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Its like you have deemed yourself to be the only one who is right, and everyone else is wrong, and anyone who argues against you is to be dismissed and whacked on the knuckles with your Schoolmaster's cane.

This is rather like the way Immanuel Velikovsky's ideas were suppressed by scientists of his time. While his ideas and theories were almost certainly wrong, suppressing them was even more wrong... and that brings me to another Saganism “The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or in politics, but it is not the path to knowledge..." .

Funny. Carrier says something similar. He said he never found 'silence' to be a particularly persuasive argument as a reason that he never gave much credence to the Jesus myth argument. He never found that to be very persuasive. And I have to agree. The Jesus cult was a small one. Paul may be significant to Christians, but that no one else wrote about him in the tiny few documents we do have is hardly surprising.

I think I am back to square one. I don't know and it would be a mistake to say what if anything about this religion is true.

I will say this and it is a bit of a repeat of what Carrier has said. The 'so called' scholarship regarding the New Testament is a mess. It's convoluted and require speculation based on a scant amount of information.

 

[dejudge]

You have to understand that I am not dismissing what you're saying. I actually agree about some of it. For example, it seems as if Ehrman wants to have his cake and eat it to. (I'm actually in the middle of a debate btween Ehrman and Robert Price where Ehrman suggests that the gospels prove Jesus because they are different.) That doesn't prove a thing to me. I look at the Synoptic Gospels as proof of at most a single attestation, not three different ones.

As I said, Ehrman's arguments for an HJ are riddled with logical fallacies.

About Carrier, it's not like he argues Paul is real, he just uses quotes from the Epistles to suggest problems with the historicity of Jesus.

Richard Carrier actually argues that Paul was a figure of history .

See https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/7643

I will concur that, as I have found, the book of Acts is near useless fiction (On the Historicity of Jesus, Chapter 9).

Carrier admits that Acts of the Apostles [the main NT source about Paul] is near useless fiction.

His argument is extremely flawed. Useless fiction cannot show that Paul existed.

My biggest problem with all of this is the use of stories that are filled with gross exaggerations as proof to confirm and/or dismiss. It seems to me that any real scholar would/could never come to a reasonable determination about the historicity of Jesus. And maybe not Paul.

Well, it seems to me that no real Scholar would/could argue for the historicity of Paul while admitting Acts of the Apostles is near useless fiction,that the Pauline letters are riddled with forgeries and without historical corroboration.

 

[HansMustermann]

You seem to be operating under a sort of all or nothing assumption. As in, either EVERYTHING attributed to or written about Paul is absolutely true, or verily he didn't even exist. That's illogical in itself. I mean by the same kind of logic, Trump never existed

But while that may or may not have merit as a hypothesis when applied to Paul per se, it gets downright delusional when it's about Marcion. The argument you're makin is basically that if reality says X, but your logic says !X, then reality can bugger right off instead of taking it as a hint that you just did an ad absurdum on yourself.

And I can even tell you where you go into dada land with that "logic": all ancient sources that argued against Marcion say that he used MODIFIED versions of Luke and Paul. Your argument is, what? That it couldn't have been Luke and Paul because the NON-modified version says something else? E.g., that when the argument is that he used a Luke WITHOUT the miraculous birth intro, your argument is... that it can't have been Luke because there's a miraculous birth part IN the intro? Can you spot the nonsense yet? Well, gee, yeah, that his version doesn't match ours is exactly the accusation they made.

 

[HansMustermann]

But generally, what you seem to thoroughly not understand is how copying manuscripts worked back then. It was nothing like a book nowadays. Nowadays if we both have a copy of Ehrman's "Forged", we can both be sure it has the same thing on the same page. Well, at least if it's the same edition.

Back then every copy was just that: a copy. Copied by hand. Things got added. Things got removed.

If you didn't like that Josephus didn't mention Jesus, you might introduce your own testimony when copyin it. If you didn't like that Marcion's Luke lacked a gushing testimony of Jesus's miraculous birth, or Mark stopped without anyone actually meeting a miraculously resurrected Jesus, you might make your own version with an extra page at the front or respectively back "correcting" the "ommission".

It wasn't HONEST, but I think not many accused the ancient Xians of being honest

Anyway, expecting that if both Irenaeus and Marcion were reading Luke, it was identical copies, down to every single paragraph, is exactly the unwarranted premise. That's not how books worked back then. Thet if they were both reading Paul it's even the same letters entirely, is even more unwarranted.

 

[Darat]

I'm not disagreeing with you. At all. But you seem to act as if there isn't a great many scholars that say differently. That you're opinion on this is quite radical.

I'm certainly not a biblical scholar qualified to argue you're right and they're wrong or vice versa. I'm doing my best to evaluate this fairly. If you don't see that, that is your issue, not mine.

Problem is that much of what we accept to be “the facts” were or are the opinions and work of “biblical scholars” and not historians.

Now using a term like biblical scholars isn’t in itself a concern as someone may for example be considered a scholar of Magna Carta(s), that’s an elegant way of saying “historian that specialises in studies of Magna Carta(s)”. Problem is that many of the “biblical scholars” we discuss are not “historians that specialise in the Christian Bible” they are often “theologians that investigate the history of their beliefs from within that belief”. Now of course that doesn’t mean that any work they do is automatically wrong or off poor quality and so on, however it does mean that many of them will not have undertaken the academic studies that we would usually expect a modern historian to have followed. So we need to be extra careful when we look into their conclusions of the history of their beliefs.

 

[Darat]

But generally, what you seem to thoroughly not understand is how copying manuscripts worked back then. It was nothing like a book nowadays. Nowadays if we both have a copy of Ehrman's "Forged", we can both be sure it has the same thing on the same page. Well, at least if it's the same edition.

Back then every copy was just that: a copy. Copied by hand. Things got added. Things got removed.

If you didn't like that Josephus didn't mention Jesus, you might introduce your own testimony when copyin it. If you didn't like that Marcion's Luke lacked a gushing testimony of Jesus's miraculous birth, or Mark stopped without anyone actually meeting a miraculously resurrected Jesus, you might make your own version with an extra page at the front or respectively back "correcting" the "ommission".

It wasn't HONEST, but I think not many accused the ancient Xians of being honest

Anyway, expecting that if both Irenaeus and Marcion were reading Luke, it was identical copies, down to every single paragraph, is exactly the unwarranted premise. That's not how books worked back then. Thet if they were both reading Paul it's even the same letters entirely, is even more unwarranted.

Just a small note, we would say today it wasn’t academically honest, but back then the idea of adding bits, deleting bits and wholesale editing the work so it becomes “correct” would have been perfectly acceptable.

 

[HansMustermann]

That said, about Luke, many actually make the argument that the version Luke actually wrote was missing that first page. As in, the whole first page of our Luke is a later addition, by someone who totally wasn't Luke.

Not only there are stylistic red flags, but remember what I said about forgers feeling the need to tell the readers that no, this is the real thing? Yeah, that beginning where Luke makes that claim of being a great historian is such a red flag. Actual historians didn't do that.

Basically if you were Slim Shady, you'd just start with "Hi, I'm Slim Shady" at most and get to the subject matter. If you had to start with telling people that no, you're the real Slim Shady, there was a good chance that you weren't. And if you even warned people to not trust other Slim Shadys, because they're forgeries, then you almost certainly weren't the real Slim Shady. (The logic there is that a gullible mark would think that a forger would avoid mentioning forgeries, so someone who warns you from the start that there are forgeries out there must be the real deal.)

Now that COULD also apply to Luke as a whole, but there's an argument to be made that it definitely applies to additions such as the first page.

So, anyway, it is POSSIBLE that Marcion has the real gospel of Luke. Then the guys who would later become the RCC decide that they have to argue against Marcion and his gospel, and the easiest way is to basically modify it to say what they want it to say. Like, add a whole page to the front, complete with a claim that this is the real and well researched version.

 

[Tassman]

Perhaps. But then also perhaps Paul just heard some discussion about whether the messiah had already come (which was an actual debate topic for pharisees in the 1st century),

Very likely given that Paul also was a Pharisee. And having an impostor parading around as the messiah with a rabble of uneducated followers could well be the origin of his hostility and persecution of them.

and then his hallucination made it real. There's no real way to know.

Well the imagery of hallucinations very often tied to obsessions of the moment. It can be difficult to distinguish religious conversion from delusional thinking. In fact, conversion experiences in the context of schizophrenia (as you indicate below) or epileptic seizures are not uncommon.

As I was saying, Paul shows SERIOUS signs of schizophrenic delusions, not just some one off epilepsy. He actually talks to Jesus and gets answers,

Many Christians talk to Jesus – or so they imagine – it’s not just schizophrenics that are delusional.

A) being OBSSESSED with Jesus, to the point that he dedicates his life to bringing the news about Jesus and writing 20 page letters about it. (Which, at the time, the paper alone would have cost the equivalent of a couple grand these days. So you have to be pretty frikken hard about Jesus to spend that much to tell someone about him.)

Yep. All of that.

B) not only showing NO interest in learning or sharing more about his idol, but taking it as a point of pride that he refuses learning anything about him from anyone who might know more. Hell, he thinks he's qualified to tell Peter what Jesus would have thought, instead of the other way around.

He claims he got it all straight from the horse’s mouth: “I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ”. Galatians 1:12. Surely that outranks everyone else including Peter. It sure does in Paul’s mind.

Anyway, I dunno, expecting him to need something real to base his delusions on is IMHO not very warranted.

It could be argued that Paul’s conversion was triggered by his guilt at persecuting the followers of an itinerant preacher, who’s uneducated fanbase was distraught when their hero got himself executed.

Mind you it COULD be based on some real story he heard and then distorted. But it could just as well be all in his head, since he's already in the mode where his imagination trumps reality.

Many well-known religious leaders have been labeled epileptic with delusions grounded in frontal-lobe seizures, not just Paul – e.g. Joan of Arc, and Prophet Mohammad. And whoever composed Revelation was clearly totally out of his mind.

 

[HansMustermann]

Many Xians do talk to Jesus, but Paul gets answers. I mean, I talk to my computer (usually expletives, but still...), but if I started hearing the computer talk back I might want to check my firewall and see a psychiatrist. One or the other can't be right

That said, the story about Paul persecuting Xians is also somewhat iffy.

For a start, it's mostly based on Acts, which is a novel. And not a very historically accurate one at that. In fact, Dr Who's having lizard people in Victorian London is more historically accurate than Acts

Paul does make a brief mention of it, but it's equally problematic.

The figure of Paul's supposed teacher is all wrong, to the point where at one point he talks about a revolt that's in the FUTURE at that point. (Did I mention Dr Who yet?) And makes it be the cause of a revolt in the PAST. And self contradictory.

But more importantly it gives Paul some kind of authority that nobody else had. While the Romans may have let Jews govern their own province (because of allying themselves with the winning side in the civil war), outright conducting manhunts for people OUTSIDE the borders of Palestine who don't worship Yahweh right was right out. Doubly so for outright going into cities that weren't even in the Roman empire at the moment, like Damascus, and expecting them to extradite people for not worshipping a foreign god right? Really? Exactly what kind of treaty would king Aretas have with his enemies to let them police in his lands?

Surely you can see a problem with that.

The Pharisees are also the minority faction at the time. They're not in a position to persecute anyone. In fact, they're occasionally finding themselves persecuted.

AFTER the destruction of the second temple, the Sadducees pretty much imploded, and the Pharisees became the dominant sect and really turned into what we now call rabbinical judaism. But BEFORE the destruction of the temple they were pretty much nobody.

In fact, it's one of the markers that so many Jesus stories are later fabrications. His conflicts are never with the actual dominant and literalist sect, which would have had a reason to really have a problem with him. They're always with the Pharisees. Why? Because that's the ones that the later Xians had a problem with. They were in conflict with the proto-rabinical Judaism, which was the Pharisees, so of course they make Jesus vent against THOSE.

But there's yet another problem there. The Jews may have still resembled having some semblance of control over their own province, but in the 1st century they lose the right to impose death sentences. You want someone killed, you have to go see the Roman governor about it. Which pretty much nixed the whole stoning for heresy thing.

And again there's the problem of WHERE he was doing it.

In Galatians he's really only for a very short interval in Judaea when he makes that mention, and is in his words unknown to the churches there. They only heard that some guy who previously persecuted the church has now joined.

So where was he such a great manhunter? In Damascus perhaps? But again, that was in the territory of a foreign and hostile power. As in, militarily actively hostile. And it's not like Paul befriended the authorities the way the king personally wants him caught. So under what authority is he hunting anyone there?

My hypothesis is that basically he might have done some foaming at the mouth at heretics, but I find a great persecutor Paul to be rather unlikely.

ESPECIALLY the kind who can get someone like Stephen actually executed in Acts, when, again, the Jews no longer had the authority to execute anyone. In fact, Paul would be leading a very illegal lynch mob in that scenario. Especially if that happened more than once, I bet the Roman authorities would want to have a word with the guy leading a band of murderous rebels. Because that's what they'd be.

 

[dejudge]

...And I can even tell you where you go into dada land with that "logic": all ancient sources that argued against Marcion say that he used MODIFIED versions of Luke and Paul....

All sources that argued against Marcion do not mention that he used modified versions of Luke and Paul.

Ephraem the Syriam wrote against Marcion and mention nothing at all about Luke and Paul.

Hippolytus wrote about Marcion and claimed he used the writings of Empedocles.

Justin Martyr wrote about Marcion and mentioned absolutely nothing about Luke and Paul.

There wasn't any Gospel called Luke and Pauline Epistles were not yet fabricated in the time of Marcion.

Now, what you do not realise is that all the writings that claim Marcion used gLuke and the Pauline Epistles have been found to be not credible.

"Against Heresies" attributed to Irenaeus claims Marcion used gLuke and the Pauline Epistles but virtually everything said about the authorship and dating of NT writings in "Against Heresies" have been discredited by Scholars.

In "Against Heresies" it is claimed the NT Gospels were written before c70 CE by Matthew, Mark, Luke and John however Scholars completely reject such claims. They argue that the Gospels were falsely attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and that the Gospels must have been written after c 70 CE except perhaps gMark.

In "Against Heresies" it is claimed the Pauline Epistles were written only by a character called Paul and before c 70 CE but again Scholars reject those claims. Scholars argue that the Pauline Epistles are compilation of forgeries written by more than one person and that some were written after c 70 CE.

In "Against Heresies" it is also claimed Jesus was crucified when he was about 50 years old which is regarded as total nonsense by Scholars.

In effect, the author of "Against Heresies" had no knowledge whatsoever of the real authors of all the NT books he mentioned.

It is clear that the author of "Against Heresies" had no idea what he was talking about with regards to the NT authorship and dating so cannot be used as an historical source for Marcion teachings or writings .

 

[acbytesla]

Very likely given that Paul also was a Pharisee. And having an impostor parading around as the messiah with a rabble of uneducated followers could well be the origin of his hostility and persecution of them.

This is where I agree at least somewhat with Dejudge.

I don't think we can say what is likely about Paul at all. So, he says he use to persecute Christians. Did he? Or is he just saying he did in an attempt to make his conversion more impactful? I can't tell you how many times in different social media threads where the poster says he use to have the opposite viewpoint of what he/she is about to express. I pretty much never believe them.

The more I read and learn the the New Testament writings the less I feel I actually know about them. I watch biblical scholars make inferences from single words writtten in dead languages 1800+ years ago and argue vehemently opposite conclusions.

The conclusion I make is they are all full of ****.

 

[acbytesla]

Problem is that much of what we accept to be “the facts” were or are the opinions and work of “biblical scholars” and not historians.

Now using a term like biblical scholars isn’t in itself a concern as someone may for example be considered a scholar of Magna Carta(s), that’s an elegant way of saying “historian that specialises in studies of Magna Carta(s)”. Problem is that many of the “biblical scholars” we discuss are not “historians that specialise in the Christian Bible” they are often “theologians that investigate the history of their beliefs from within that belief”. Now of course that doesn’t mean that any work they do is automatically wrong or off poor quality and so on, however it does mean that many of them will not have undertaken the academic studies that we would usually expect a modern historian to have followed. So we need to be extra careful when we look into their conclusions of the history of their beliefs.

This is true. The term "biblical scholar" is really an oxymoron. No serious scholar considers it a worthwhile study. It would be like calling say a trekkie a scholar. It's even worse than that. Almost no trekkies believe in its accuracy. They know there are no Romulans, Vulcans or Klingons. Yet I've been with a few that will argue endlessly about the minutiae of these stories.

 

[HansMustermann]

This is true. The term "biblical scholar" is really an oxymoron. No serious scholar considers it a worthwhile study. It would be like calling say a trekkie a scholar. It's even worse than that. Almost no trekkies believe in its accuracy. They know there are no Romulans, Vulcans or Klingons. Yet I've been with a few that will argue endlessly about the minutiae of these stories.

After Enterprise and Discovery, damn right no self respecting trekkie would think it has any accuracy

 

[acbytesla]

After Enterprise and Discovery, damn right no self respecting trekkie would think it has any accuracy

Oh no!

 

[HansMustermann]

The more I read and learn the the New Testament writings the less I feel I actually know about them. I watch biblical scholars make inferences from single words writtten in dead languages 1800+ years ago and argue vehemently opposite conclusions.

The conclusion I make is they are all full of ****.

Well, not all inferences are equal, but words can matter a lot. E.g., even in English if you read something like "Hans is very gay", it would mean very different things depending on when it's written even within a single century.

Or to use a more biblical and ancient example: in Philippians 3:6 is Paul saying he was ZEALOUS or that he was a ZEALOT persecuting the Xians? You wouldn't guess by any translation these days, because nowadays they're different words, but back then it was actually the same word. So which of them is he actually claiming to be there?

 

[acbytesla]

Well, not all inferences are equal, but words can matter a lot. E.g., even in English if you read something like "Hans is very gay", it would mean very different things depending on when it's written even within a single century.

Or to use a more biblical and ancient example: in Philippians 3:6 is Paul saying he was ZEALOUS or that he was a ZEALOT persecuting the Xians? You wouldn't guess by any translation these days, because nowadays they're different words, but back then it was actually the same word. So which of them is he actually claiming to be there?

It's funny you mention this. Both Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman in different videos referenced one of the Epistles, I don't recall which though. Anyway, in the Epistle it says "brother of the lord" Carrier says it means a member of the sect "brothers of the lord" and Ehrman says it means actual brother.

Yes, words matter a lot. I see it in the many different ways the US Supreme Court interpret the Constitution. And this is a document written 240 years ago which is accompanied by the Constitutional Convention's records as well as the Federalist Papers and yet we still see 5 to 4 decisions.

How is it that people can have more certainty on words and context in something with far less clarity?

 

[Skeptical Greg]

People pretty much wash over how bigoted and racist some of Jesus' behavior was. Never mind the antics of the OT Jews under the leadership of Jesus' dad..

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, that's a whole other topic, but basically, yes, the Bible fails hard at "show, don't tell". We're TOLD that Jesus was perfectly innocent and perfectly kept the Law, except when you look at what the Gospels say, he totally didn't. We're told that Joseph was a righeous man, except again, he kinda wasn't. And so on.

 

[HansMustermann]

It's funny you mention this. Both Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman in different videos referenced one of the Epistles, I don't recall which though. Anyway, in the Epistle it says "brother of the lord" Carrier says it means a member of the sect "brothers of the lord" and Ehrman says it means actual brother.

I suppose at the very least you can say it's inconclusive?

Paul does address the larger congregation as brothers repeatedly. And in one point he mentions more "brothers of the lord" going around.

Plus, as Carrier correctly points out elsewhere, everyone in those personal-salvation mystery cults at the time were "brothers." When you were initiated into such a cult, you became basically adopted into that family, and became the "brother" of everyone else. It's not something that would be unique for Paul's Xianity. EVERYONE did it. If you were to join the cult of Mythras, or Osiris or whatever, you'd equally become brothers with everyone else in that cult. In fact, it would be the exception if Paul's cult DIDN'T do that.

So, yeah, at the very least we can say it's inconclusive? You can't take it to NECESSARILY mean biological brother. Maybe he did mean that, maybe he didn't.

But basically that does bring us back to the importance of words. If you don't know how the word was used in all the cults at the time, someone can sell you some misleading meaning that supports his pet view. E.g., "no, brother totally means biological, so Jesus was real."

 

[dejudge]

....... Both Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman in different videos referenced one of the Epistles, I don't recall which though. Anyway, in the Epistle it says "brother of the lord" Carrier says it means a member of the sect "brothers of the lord" and Ehrman says it means actual brother.

The passage about the James the Lord's brother is found in Galatians 1.19

EHV Galatians 1.19

But I saw none of the other apostles, except James, the Lord’s brother.

I simply cannot understand how two supposed Scholars cannot agree about what is claimed in the passage.

All that is required is to refer to other apologetic writings of antiquity to understand that Christians were claiming that Jesus had a brother called James.

Examine Origen's "Against Celsus" and "Church History" attributed to Eusebius.

Origen “Against Celsus” 1.47

Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine.

Church History 4.5. 3.

But since the bishops of the circumcision ceased at this time, it is proper to give here a list of their names from the beginning. The first, then, was James, the so-called brother of the Lord..

It is clear that Christian writers were implying Jesus had a brother called James.

As usual, Ehrman with his absurd logical fallacies argues that Jesus must have existed because Paul knew his brother.

On the other hand, Carrier does not want to admit that the passage claims Jesus had a brother called James because he believes such an admittance would negate his argument that the Pauline Jesus was a myth.