Talk:Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ/Archive16

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Break this page up

It's monstrous, like the Gamergate article. Move Josephus stuff into a Josephus article, and so on. Put all of the stuff that links together concepts into the Jesus article proper. ʇυzzγɔɒтqoтɒтo (talk/stalk) 18:23, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree, it has become a bit on the longish side and since we already have a Josephus article, I think we can make do with the highlights here and have all the details in that other article. ScepticWombat (talk) 20:05, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Once all non-highlight information has been offloaded, I wonder if we'd need this article at all; Jesus seems like a fine place for many of the broader concepts. FrizzyCatPotato (talk/stalk) 20:47, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

No, I think we'll still need this one, otherwise the Jesus article will just start ballooning. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:08, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Start ballooning? I think that horse left the barn a long time ago.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:16, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

No, this answers a specific question (which is why it's as long as it is). But good work on sectioning it up usably - David Gerard (talk) 13:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Questions

Assuming 'Joshua bin Joseph' lived at some time in the period of 'the reign of Augustus' to 'late Caligula/early Claudius'

How long after he died were 'what we now call the Gospels and other writings' (canonical or otherwise) actually written down (given that 'tellers of history and the sayings of wise men' would be a normal part of the society in which JbJ lived).

Was JbJ a one off - or were there 'many' prophets, wise men, religious-political activists and others' in Judea at the time?

How many of 'the issues' can be resolved by assuming that 'the one prophet whose supporters got lucky' also benefited from syncretism of others like him at the time? 31.51.114.96 (talk) 21:47, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Josephus mentions several other preachers and/or rebels (the categories often overlapped), but as to the success of Christianity, I think Paul was the key figure. It was his idea of focussing on the Gentiles and drop Jewish dietary customs and circumcision which was the "killer app" in Christianity, since especially circumcision was seen as foreign and barbaric among Greeks and Romans (the cultural and political trend setters in the Roman Empire). Paul's innovative approach meant that he could now recruit far more effectively among the large pool of Gentiles, rather than being confined to the Jewish diaspora. ScepticWombat (talk) 21:56, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

But this raises another question: how much of the message is Paul's and how much of it is of Jesus (assuming he even existed in any meaningful sense)? Every person who actually worked with Jesus either didn't leave any record or what they left didn't survive. More over they are even and obscure and shadowy then their leader. The thing is Paul give no details as to when the Jesus he is seeing was even crucified. Barring editorial mucking he can't seem to figure out if it was "rulers of this age" (presumably Romans) or Jews who killed Jesus. Paul might as well be giving us the tall, blond, built like Atlas "god" Hitler described in Swastika Night (1937); outside the name connection the correlation between Paul's Jesus and an actual preacher of that name could be nil.

When we can check something from our Gospels and Acts to known history it spectacularly fails. Even part of Luke's temporal reference to John the Baptist is wonked as

1) Annas and Caiaphas were NEVER high priests together

2) Annas was high priest c 6 CE - c 15 CE long before the 15th year of the reign of Tiberias.

3) Caiaphas was high priest c 18 - c 36 CE so that at least fits with the 15th year of the reign of Tiberias thing

4) The only Lysanias ruling Abilene that can clearly be identified in secular sources was killed by Mark Antony in 36 BCE.

Strangely the 15th year of the reign of Tiberias should have been enough to place a date so what is with all the other stuff that either is wrong or so vague no one records it?--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:52, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I made it quite clear that I suspect that the discarding of Jewish dietary prescriptions and circumcision was a Pauline innovation. How much of Paul's few references to Jesus we can trust is of course an open question.

As for the BoN's original question, the composition dates are extremely hard to figure out, exactly because the historical "anchor points" are few and far between, clearly incompatible (e.g. Matthew's and Luke's nativity chronology) or simply flat out wrong, as Bruce correctly points out. At the very least, the NT contain later interpolations, such as "Theudas problem" which seems to stem from a misreading of Josephus and suggests either a post-Josephus interpolation or that Acts was entirely composed post-Josephus (i.e. late 1st/early 2nd century). As with the historicity of Jesus it's pretty hard to be more definite than that maximalist/inerrantist early composition dates are clearly bunk, that the "consensus" of ca. 70 AD for Mark and 80-100 AD for (in succession) Matthew, Luke and John is not implausible, but that an even later dating is possible. Similar problems exist with regards to the Pauline epistles which also contain few historical "anchor points" and if we can't use Acts as a reliable source for Paul's life (and I don't think we can), then correlating the Pauline epistles with Acts to get a composition date is futile.

Once again, the scarcity of evidence, and the dubious nature of what we do have, seems to result in a frustrating "We can't really say"-conclusion, though one which clearly doesn't support the apologetic claims. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:57, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The "Provenance — the dating of Acts, the Gospels, and Paul" section of the article already goes into the issues of the composition date so I have to ask is it poorly worded that he missed this point? Or is this yet another example of TLDR that seems to hit this page form time to time?--BruceGrubb (talk) 14:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The Melvin Bragg In Our Time for 21 May (available as a podcast) covers Josephus and also the historical context in which Josephus and Joshua ben Joseph/Jesus existed.

Shall we use 'Joshua ben Joseph' to describe 'the actual real person' and 'Jesus' for the person described in the Gospels.

To what extent is 'Jesus' based on a person existing just beyond living memory called JbJ who was at the hedge priest/guru end of the market rather than the 'political activist group promoting 'Romans Out of Judea and similar' end of the spectrum?

Was Paul one writer-promoter among many - and could he have selected the John the Baptist/some other figure of the time to promote - and do other gurus and activists each have their own corpus of literature (what is the plural of this term?) which did not 'take off'? 31.51.113.83 (talk) 12:58, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

The issue is we don't know when Paul's Jesus supposedly was killed by the rulers of this age so he could have been before JbJ. We do know from Eleutherus c180 CE Against Heresies there were dozens of "heretical" branches of Christianity each with its own set of sacred writings. Christianity as we know it doesn't really come into being until the end of the 4th century when an actual set canon was formally established by the Councils of Carthage.--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:54, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Jesus myth theory

Is there any reason this subject couldn't be merged into the Jesus myth theory article itself? Herr FuzzyKatzenPotato (talk/stalk) 02:25, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Probably not, so feel free to merge and replace with a summary or something. ScepticWombat (talk) 04:51, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd merge it the other way. Or this as the main and that as the subarticle. Jesus myth theories are historically considerably more detailed than it would be reasonable to list here. This article is about the evidence - David Gerard (talk) 08:28, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry I wasn't being entirely clear and misread the original post. I was suggesting that the relevant Jesus myth theory stuff here be merged into the Jesus myth theory article, not vice versa. The summary was meant to be a summary of the Jesus myth theory article here to the extent that bits and pieces of myth theory is relevant (e.g. objections to interpretations of (not necessarily actual) evidence such as Josephus or Tacitus). I completely agree with David Gerard that we need separate articles for Jesus myth theory and the actual evidence for a historical Jesus (or rather the lack of same).

Also, as I wrote below, I think a third article on "Jesus hoaxes" might be a good idea as a kind of mirror image of the actual evidence. That way, we can cut all the "not actually evidence" that are outright forgeries from here and simply replace with a redirect. A "Jesus hoaxes" article could summarise or simply redirect to the hoaxes RW already has articles on (e.g. the Shroud of Turin) and if and when sections get long enough, other hoaxes can be split off into their own articles. ScepticWombat (talk) 17:33, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, by "subject" I meant "section". Herr FuzzyKatzenPotato (talk/stalk) 19:28, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure I'd remove all the hoaxes - the ones I added to the article are ones that apologists have brought up as non-hoaxes. But sure, we could do with an article on Jesus hoaxes in general - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Something I don't get

Why remove all this text from this article because there exists a main article on the subject? That there's a main article doesn't mean some of the more important aspects of the subject can't be treated on this page too, right? 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:42, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

A few reasons.

First, this article, even after all of the cutting, is 121,453 characters. (It was 151,204 before.) It's very long and perhaps unapproachable by someone new to the subject.

Second, this article should function as an overview. It'd be impossible to have all of the relevant information in this article without making it insanely long, and so it necessarily must be an overview. Hence why the hoaxes section and the non-Biblical section (and potentially other sections) must be linkfarms.

Third, the text I removed had information relevant to the Jesus myth theory in general; having it here hurt that article by omission. It'd be fine to discuss the JMT deeper in this article; instead, the information discussed specifics better discussed in the main article. Herr FüzzyCätPötätö (talk/stalk) 19:50, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I would like to point out even what the JMT even is varies from author to author to author and it really isn't relevant to the evidence for a Reductive Jesus. In fact, it you really look some of the JMT might as well be "weak" historical Jesus theories.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:25, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hoaxes

These seem easily movable; the Shroud has an article, the Ossuary can easily get one, and the letters can go to Pontius Pilate. oʇɐʇoԀʇɐϽʎzznℲ (talk/stalk) 02:36, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure that that's a good idea, unless we create an article and/or category that collects all these specific hoaxes in one place. Otherwise, it'll "atomise" the content. I'd suggest an article on "Jesus hoaxes" or some title like that. ScepticWombat (talk) 04:58, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

As a page, it was just so pitifully small... I've left it in as a section here. FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 19:16, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Restructuring

I rearranged sections and content; I hope it's clearer. The first section still needs work and content dispersion. FuzzyDogPotato (talk/stalk) 04:59, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Looking a lot better. There were places where the article read like a stream of consciousness but the information was important. I removed the Alternate Jesuses because the raw point is in essence covered in the Jesus as historical myth and The Tabula Rasa Jesus section.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:09, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Since we're in major overhaul mode, I suggest that quite early on in the article (probably in the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ#Evidence and pseudoscience section) should include a brief explanation of what "evidence" is in this context.

Basically, I'd divide it into the two general categories of sources used by historians (physical remains + written/oral narratives) and then what I'd term "indirect evidence", which is the kind used by so many apologists theologians New Testament scholars (e.g. the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ#Christianity proves Christ subsection). These three "super categories" could also be used to structure the article along with the fourth, the meta-category consisting of the existing debate on the topic and flawed approaches such as the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ#Euhemerism subsection.

1. The physical remains of Jesus is zero (basically it's the Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ#Archaeological evidence subsection).
2. The written historical sources for Jesus are also covered in existing sections, specifically the Christian and non-Christian references to Jesus made by authors who might have worked from primary sources (essentially these are also either bogus or so untrustworthy (read: the New Testament) or vague (Tacitus, Mara bar-Serapion) that they're worthless). This also includes all the problems with dating, bias, tampering etc.
3. The "indirect evidence". This is a charitable term, because it would include all the kind of crappy apologetic special pleading most of which can simply be dismissed out of hand (basically, if you want to make claims about historical evidence, you can't start making up your own criteria for evidence that aren't used anywhere else in the broad field of history).
4. The debate itself, a meta-category already covered in sections 1-3 and parts of 6 (e.g. Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ#"Most scholars think Jesus existed")

This way it would be clear what the debate is about, what is normally considered evidence when historians evaluate such questions, and what the status of the usual evidence for the historical existence of Jesus is. ScepticWombat (talk) 05:58, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

That seems like a solid organization. I think the debate overview should be first, though. FᴜᴢᴢʏCᴀᴛPᴏᴛᴀᴛᴏ﹐ Esϙᴜɪʀᴇ (talk/stalk) 06:06, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I absolutely agree - the numbering reflects my order of writing them, not the order I want them to appear in. I think the current model is useful in having the nutshell and debate stuff at the beginning (as a "overview of the overview" sort of thing). So it's:

1. Nutshell & Debate.
2. Physical evidence (goes first because it's short and physical evidence is usually considered stronger in a case like this than written accounts).
3. Written sources (suggest non-Christian sources first, followed by the Christian stuff; again, non-Christian sources would constitute better evidence and have already been quickly covered because they're pretty scanty, brief and vague).
4. "Indirect evidence" ("Circumstantial evidence"?).

I'd like to hear from Bruce too, btw. He's usually full of good ideas. ScepticWombat (talk) 06:30, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Well I combined Positions on Jesus with Triumphalism versus Reductivism to streamline that section as well as added ahistorical to the position matrix (The Jesus myth theory is such a mess by this article is NOT the place to try and thrash that mess out)--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:38, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Rename

To Historicity of Jesus. It's Wikipedia's title and it's a better title. FuzzyCatPotato™ (talk/stalk) 13:30, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Nah, I think presenting the known and claimed evidence, with assessments as to whether or not it constitutes non-negligible evidence at all, is fine - David Gerard (talk) 16:47, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Er... This is a rename, not a content change. FU22YC47P07470 (talk/stalk) 16:56, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm saying the current name describes it fine as is - David Gerard (talk) 17:04, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Gerard on this one. The current title, while a bit more clunky, reflects the contents better than "Historicity of Jesus". ScepticWombat (talk) 17:16, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Gerard and ScepticWombat here. The evidence regarding Jesus is a totally difference related matter to his Historicity. Remsburg felt there was just enough to show that Historicity while his contemporary Drews felt that same evidence was NOT enough.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:00, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually

... as with the Nancy Drew stories there were a number of 'chaps with views' who adopted the same by-name (and back-story) partly to confuse the authorities. 86.134.53.96 (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

The minimal Jesus

This doesn't really add much, but concentrates own speculations about what can reasonably can said with some degree of certainty.

• Christianity originated somehow. It's fair to assume, that the central point was the person known to us as Jesus, whatever his real name may have been.
• It's plausible that he was one of the apocalyptic preachers of the time - there were a number of them.
• It's quite plausible that this individual was crucified.

This is just my personal opinion, but it does provide a plausible skeleton, subject to debate of course, and everything else is subject to a much stronger debate. Sorte Slyngel (talk) 14:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree. Naturally, christianity originated somehow. I don't think it's fair to assume that the central point was at all the person known as Jesus. A lot of revelatory sects are being skipped by you here, and there's equal grounds for "assuming" that they all meant an archangel or a voice that spoke to them or the likes. And now, I'm not adding to your conjuecture by posing equal conjecture - I'm just saying your point here isn't at all fair to be assumed. There's been way too many assumptions in the theology-dominated historicity debating. Sure, if he did exist then it is plausible he was an eccentric preacher, as that area and that time was basically Life of Brian. I mean, sure, but we're not here to just jump ahead via plausibilities. We need evidence. Crucifixion was a common punishment in that time, there's previous savior gods who were crucified in the region, et cetera. And still, even if there's agreement on the crucifixion within the Gospels, that still proves nothing outside of the damn Bible. And again, I'm not presenting an opposing position here. I'm just tossing in some random thoughts on why it's not all plausible to just assume here and there. And I'm glad you do acknowledge the bigger debate, which this would - as you say - not add anything to. Just as much, these are just my own thoughts regarding your thoughts, and just as little something for anyone to "hold me to". So this doesn't add much either. We both added little, one might say. But your degrees of certainity - I don't agree with them at all. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:42, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I understand you quite well. This was just my condensed Jesus. I didn't forget the other sects, they are implied in the second point. But all in all, this was just, what I thought was a reasonable speculation with an emphasis on reason. We'll never know for sure unless some major finds are made, textual or possibly otherwise. Sorte Slyngel (talk) 15:55, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the second and third points are, as you point out in other words, kind of saying that water is wet. :-) Sorte Slyngel (talk) 15:59, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, hehe, also - I hope I didn't come off as sounding too harsh. You specifically stated that those were just your own thoughts and that they added nothing, as did I, and anyone who'd jump the gun on you is clearly not able to read plain english. But like, yeah, the whole problem is that people have assumed the biblical account for millenia (!) and then relatively recently started to look for details at all, while keeping the assumptions. And today, post-Popper, we're like: we need to start reconstructing this the other way around. Nothing stays but that for which we can find corroborating evidence outside of the damn bible. You know, burden of proof - as is upheld equally and against everything. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

You came across as friendly, no worries. Note that I dismissed the Gospels in their entirety by not mentioning them. They are not history. Read their account about what Jesus is supposed to have said on the cross. If I remember correctly, he says nothing in the oldest one (can't remember which one) but is practically talking his head off when it comes to John. Personally I'm an atheist. I had the good fortune to be born into a religion-free family. That does not mean that my parents don't have their own beliefs - just that I was not brought up according to any religion, and all questions I had as a child were answered factually. It wasn't until decades later, that I realized how lucky I was. There are all too many stories about people struggling to be free. I had that handed to me. :-) Sorte Slyngel (talk) 16:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Good for you! Same here. Though my mother is strangely apologetic, having what Dennett calls "belief in belief". But regardless; us being atheists is beside the point on the historicity question. The most important thing to stress is that as much as faith doesn't require evidence for any historical Jesus, Atheism is not shook in the slightest was a historical Jesus to be proven conclusively. So it's important to keep in mind that the the outlook is scientific scepticism, not atheism or theism, in this exact article. Though, of course, we need to parry greatly against the fervent lying-for-Jesus present among the depressingly many faithful (and sometimes evangelical) "bible scholars" out there. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:52, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree absolutely. I'm only thinking about history here. If Jesus turns out to be incontrovertibly historical, even if a detailed, reliable biography should be found, that does not alter a bit any religious stance, in our case not having any religion. Sorte Slyngel (talk) 16:57, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

For a very well documented saint, although his behaviour was far from saintly, see this guy. His story is told in the entire middle third of Heimskringla and he also occupies hundreds of pages in Flateyjarbók as well as possibly having more extant poetry about him than any other Norwegian king. He's still not divine. :-) Sorte Slyngel (talk) 17:16, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

As I have said elsewhere per John Frum we could have had inspired people take up the name "Jesus" (possibly from Paul or someone even earlier) just as people took up the name "John Frum". It would certainly explain Paul's curious 2 Corinthians 11:4 comment about 'another Jesus' and it is not all that different from what John Robertson wrote in 1900. If I had to guess with the material in its current state the Gospel Jesus is a composite being with the words and deeds of various other "Christs" such as The Samaritan prophet, Egyptian Jew Messiah, and Jesus ben Ananias [Ananus] used as inspiration. Paul gives no real temporal clues as to when (or even if) the Jesus he saw in a vision walked the Earth; it could have 20 years previously or it could have been 200. There are hints that the current version of John Frum is based on a real person but that person seems to have been "plugged" into an already existing mythology.--

Josephus

Making a claim based on a 1912 source, when the scholarship has moved on, is not reasonable. I majored in religious studies as an undergrad in the late 80s -- a secular, state university -- and the consensus already by then was not as your 1912 source has it.---Mona- (talk) 19:13, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

Are you suggesting to trash one or both of the Drews citations (currently 29 & 30) in Passage 2: the "Jamesian Reference" or just one of them? 'Cause I must admit I found the stuff about the supposed manuscript a bit fishy, whereas the other stuff varies from the rather far fetched and tenuous ("anointed" used to refer to Jesus son of Damneus because he became high priest and claiming he was venerated) to the mundane (the use of the word "brother" to mean follower, not a biological sibling, is well-attested). So I'm simply fishing for a little elaboration of your criticism and call for improvement. ScepticWombat (talk) 07:29, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

SW, I don't seek to "trash" anything. What matters to me is what the current state of scholarship is vis-a-vis any particular claim. The use of the word "brother" is controversial, and the Catholics insist it can mean "cousin" and does in the case of references to Jesus' "brothers." (It is crucial for Roman Catholic doctrine that Mary was ever-virgin, and so Jesus "has to" be an only child.) But, I was taught by secular college professors who read the original languages that it meant Jesus siblings.---Mona- (talk) 23:23, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

Price makes a good point regarding the Testimonium Flavianum "John Meier and others are rewriting a bad text to make it a good one,to rehabilitate it for use as a piece of evidence" in his The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems He also makes the point "It is all moot. The silence of the sources argument at most implies a Bultmannian version of a historical Jesus whose relatively mod- est activity as an exorcist and faith healer would not have attracted much attention, any more than the secular media cover Peter Popov today. It does not go all the way to imply there was no historical Jesus."--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Until you take it to the talk page and explain what is preferable about your version, I will always revert whenever I see your version back. So, lay out the arguments for the alleged superiority of your way and convince me (and others), or just stop it.---Mona- (talk) 07:12, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I moved this from my personal talk page to here where it is more relevant.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:44, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok.---Mona- (talk) 07:48, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Carrier admits he's in a teeny tiny minority

In a blog post here about his book.

There are at least six well-qualified experts, including two sitting professors, two retired professors, and two independent scholars with Ph.D.’s in relevant fields, who have recently gone on public record as doubting whether there really was a historical Jesus.

Carrier claims this:

I think it is more likely that Jesus began in the Christian mind as a celestial being (like an archangel), believed or claimed to be revealing divine truths through revelations (and, by bending the ear of prophets in previous eras, through hidden messages planted in scripture). Christianity thus began the same way Islam and Mormonism did: by their principal apostles (Mohammed and Joseph Smith) claiming to have received visions from their religion’s “actual” teacher and founder, in each case an angel (Gabriel dictated the Koran, Moroni provided the Book of Mormon).

Yes, well, that's interesting, but given that he chose the "peers" to review his book, and also given that he's in a very minute minority of scholars with his position, he merits a sentence or two, best in a footnote. (Carrier does not appear to be employed in his field and holds himself out as an "independent scholar.") As I've said many times now, we should be relying on the contemporary consensus of secular religious studies scholars.---Mona- (talk) 19:25, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

As I point out above the way Carrier did it seems to have followed a process of peer review that is "absolutely standard for history books published by UK academic presses" and the academic publisher has final say regarding the approval of any reviewer that an author may present. Furthermore in the case of Sheffield Phoenix one of those reviewers will always be a "series editor or a reader for the Press". You and others may not like it but if that is how peer review is done by UK academic presses then you have to accept Carrier followed the rules of peer review.

More over Carrier could be totally right regarding Jesus starting out as celestial being...and his version of the Christ Myth could still be wrong. Using John Frum as an example we could have Paul or someone before him go on about a celestial Jesus and inspire one or more people to take that name and start preaching their own take on the idea one of which because the foundation of the Gospel accounts. As I point out in this article

"Just as there is a huge spectrum regarding the historical Jesus there is an equally large one regarding the Jesus myth theory some of which are really reductive historical theories such as is seen with G. A. Mead and John M. Allegro who put Jesus c. 100 BCE or Resmburg who said there was just enough to show Jesus existed as a human being but nothing to verify any of the New Testament account as being history."

Based on his comment in The Jesus Legend Wells was NOT arguing for a Christ myth far early then this work as in Did Jesus Exist "I agued that Paul sincerely believed that the evidence (not restricted to the Wisdom Literature) pointed to a historical Jesus who had lived well before his own day" So we have a legendary rather then celestial Jesus...which is NOT a mythist position as far as Carrier is concerned. Let's face it there is a LOT that is labeled "Christ Myth" that if we use the 'Jesus never existed as a human being' as our criteria simply is NOT.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:46, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Trying to accommodate both positions

Bruce, I'm bothered at how I left things above. I don't want to come off as being dismissive of everything another editor has to say (well, most editors). My basic position is that, as the vast majority of scholars conclude, "some Jewish guy" was preaching in various parts of Palestine at the time attributed to Jesus Christ, a time when messiahs were popping up everywhere. My reasons have nothing to do with Jesus belief; I'm an atheist. It's things like this:

Although no new major sources have been discovered in the past quarter century, today’s Quest [for the historical Jesus] has not failed to introduce new methods into the discussion and new categories by which to understand Jesus. The study of the historical Jesus is now accompanied by greater attention to social modeling: comparative peasant economies, scribal communities, millenarian movements, studies of shamans and folk healings, psychobiography, cultural anthropology, political theory, and the like have all been adduced to provide the context for understanding the Gospel accounts. Archaeology, especially the archaeology of the lower Galilee, also stakes a claim to direct relevance, although finding an artifact and determining its import for understanding Jesus remain quite distinct.

Religious studies scholars have recently drawn on many disciplines and modeling techniques to arrive at probabilities about the life of the man called Jesus, said in the Bible to be the Christ; the Messiah. For these and other compelling reasons this is true of the scholarly field:

There is a consensus of sorts on a basic outline of Jesus’ life. Most scholars agree that Jesus was baptized by John, debated with fellow Jews on how best to live according to God’s will, engaged in healings and exorcisms, taught in parables, gathered male and female followers in Galilee, went to Jerusalem, and was crucified by Roman soldiers during the governorship of Pontius Pilate (26–36 CE). But, to use the old cliché, the devil is in the details.

This is also the consensus:

Josephus typically is regarded as offering the only secure non-Christian testimony to Jesus

All of these quotes are taken from the introduction to The Historical Jesus in Context, edited by Amy-Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison Jr., & John Dominic Crossan, secular scholars published by the Princeton Press. These scholars are fully aware that some of Josephus' words about Jesus are almost certainly interpolations from later Christians. They also cite Albert Schweizer on the same point you do about those who study the New Testament projecting their own views onto the evidence. No one denies this can and does sometimes occur; but since Schweizer's time it's become increasingly less reputable to do that. For one thing, religious studies, as a separate and secular field distinct from theology, did not yet exist in Schweizer's time (or if so, only barely and not much).The field didn't mushroom at universities until the 60s and 70s.

Anyway, it seems to me that maybe we could have you draft a section on how the atheist and skeptical community has embraced Carrier, and deleve into his views on this all, much as you already have. My objection is simply to including him in a fashion that would make it appear this is some sort of mainstream -- or even seriously competitive -- view, because it absolutely is not. Let me know what you think of that idea.---Mona- (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing the issue regarding the Jesus Myth theory...we already have an article on that and that is where such things belong. NO part of this article is in support of the 'Jesus never existed as a human being' Christ Myth; it is looking at the evidence for a historical (however you want to define it) Jesus.

Carrier's point (which he spends some 10 pages on) is that there is a lot of pseudoscience on both sides of the historical issue; there is a lot of nonsense presented even by scholars (Thallus is the poster child of that kind of nonsense. Carrier's article - there is a pdf in one of the rededit links above - does help in making that that piece of evidence look less stupid then many writers present it but it is still bad).

As for Hector Avalos he seems to be taking the Horace Miner approach in showing his field needs to sit down and reevaluate how it is doing things. And sometime the way to do that is to engage in dark satire that takes things to an extreme that when you stop to actually think about what is being said they come off as totally gonzo.

You mention Schweizer who I may remind you put James George Frazer (a man who NEVER said Jesus didn't exist) in the category of who contested the historical existence of Jesus. Schweizer also put John M. Robertson in that catagory even though as Archibald Robertson pointed out Robertson's version of the Christ Myth "is not concerned to deny such a possibility [that Jesus existed as a human being]. What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded"

As for the age of Religious Studies as a museum anthropologist I can tell you what Carrier is using is aspect of Historical Anthropology a field that is as young if not younger then modern Religious Studies. Historical Anthropology tries to create a view of the culture in question and reevaluate documents of that time within that framework. It looks at the social-political and cultural aspects that would effect what was recorded as history. Terry Jones Medieval Lives is an example of armchair Historical Anthropology.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to take a break from this article for a bit. What initially alarmed me was the material about how "Bible studies" (most do not call it that any more unless they are sectarian) is rife with bias due to personal belief. To the extent that's true of all scholarship, it's a truism that doesn't need mentioning, and if it is supposed to be so about religious studies scholars, I have seen little evidence of it.

Based on all I've read, and stated broadly, the rough narrative that seems true to me is: It appears a Jewish preacher named Jesus was walking around Galilee and other parts of Palestine arguing against certain Jewish groups and practices, and in favor of others, and likely was baptized by a (likely) Essene Jew named John. Jesus was regarded by many of his followers as the Jewish messiah, making him one of a huge crop of ever-growing candidates in this era. He was seen as a magician and healer but got into trouble with Rome and was crucified. That would have been that, except for a Roman Jew named Saul, who had a conversion experience, was then called Paul, and then promptly went about the actual founding of Christianity. (Christ didn't found the religion in my opinion; Paul did.)

Well anyway, and as I said, I want to come back to this with fresh eyes later, and with an opportunity to digest more of what you argue. Perhaps you are not arguing as extremely as I had initially thought, but in that case perhaps exactly what the point is should be made clear. If Carrier, like Schweizer, himself includes among those who don't believe in the "historical Jesus" those who believe a man named Jesus existed who inspired a group of followers that led to Paul, that gets confusing, to put it mildly.---Mona- (talk) 16:24, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Uh, I think I lost you on that last sentence. Schweizer basically said the Jesus of history wasn't as important as the Christ of faith but he certainly believed that Jesus existed as a human being.

That said the fact Schweizer counted Frazer ("My theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth") and Robertson ("The myth theory is not concerned to deny such a possibility [that Jesus existed as a human being). What the myth theory denies is that Christianity can be traced to a personal founder who taught as reported in the Gospels and was put to death in the circumstances there recorded ") among those "who contested the historical existence of Jesus" shows a the fundamental problem with the whole issue: different views on that constitutes a "historical" Jesus. It is the point Remsburg and Marshall made nearly a century apart from each other.--BruceGrubb (talk) 01:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I've done a major rewrite of the section in question to make it clear just what it is about.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Ok, I'll take a look at all your new work in a few days. I'm off to a few other things at the moment.---Mona- (talk) 03:44, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Mona needs to stop being a revert monkey

Mona's last revert shows she is NOT reading what is being put in. She reverted my last edit with the comment "brudce, I'm holding off on the rest of your edits for now to see where we actually disagree, but on this, this is the correct, factual state of scholarship".

Here is what she wants to revert

Josephus (ca. 37 - 100 CE; oldest copy is 11th century): The Jewish historian Josephus is claimed to be earliest non-Christian to mention Jesus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 93-94 CE) with the two references being referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum and the "Jamesian Reference". However, there is much debate regarding how much of the Testimonium Flavianum was written by Josephus[132] as there is no reference to it before the 4th century[133][134] and there are claims going back to the late 19th century that in the 16th century there a manuscript of a text of Josephus in which there was not a word about Jesus [135][136]. Even if the consensus there was something there[137] is correct these passage are no more is evidence for a historical Jesus then the testimony of Tanna Natives in 1956 are evidence that John Frum was a white US servicemen of the 1930s or documents signed "Ned Ludd" in the 1810s (all of which are clearly by different people) is evidence there really was such a man in 1779.[138]

See that bolded part? It expressly states "Even if the consensus there was something there[137] is correct" and uses "Eddy, Paul Rhodes; Gregory A. Boyd (2007) The Jesus Legend Baker Academic ISBN-13: 978-0801031144 pg 157 as a reference.

To claim the blogs and web she has is better then a book by Baker Academic from 2007 when one of those pages uses a work from 1995 shows this person is not even bother to READ what is being put in the piece..or worse doesn't really care. Especially when the cites work says the same blasted thing she is reverting for.

She needs to stop and READ what is actually THERE and stop reverting stuff because she doesn't think (if that word even applies because reading requires understanding which requires thinking which this revert doesn't show any of) something is not there (when it CLEARLY IS)--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:23, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Bruce, feel free to reinsert your sources. It's the wording I am interested in.---Mona- (talk) 16:49, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I reworked it a bit:

Josephus (ca. 37 - 100 CE; oldest copy is 11th century): The Jewish historian Josephus is claimed to be earliest non-Christian to mention Jesus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 93-94 CE) with the two references being referred to as the Testimonium Flavianum and the "Jamesian Reference". However, there is much debate regarding how much of the Testimonium Flavianum was written by Josephus[132] as there is no reference to it before the 4th century[133][134] and there are claims going back to the late 19th century that in the 16th century there a manuscript of a text of Josephus in which there was not a word about Jesus [135][136]. Even if the consensus there was something there regarding Jesus[137] is correct Carrier demonstrates with such examples as John Frum and Ned Ludd (the first academically documented potentially as close as 11 years after he supposedly founded the movement that bares his name and the second with letters and proclamations with his supposed signature about 30 years after his supposed founding of the Luddite movement) that the passages in of themselves only prove that there was the belief that a man named Jesus had preached in the area.[138]

The work on John Frum in question is Guiart, Jean (1952) "John Frum Movement in Tanna" Oceania Vol 22 No 3 pg 165-177 which turn is referenced in Worsley, Peter (1957) The Trumpet Shall Sound: A Study of "Cargo" Cults in Melanesia London: Macgibbon & Kee pp. 153–9 which Carrier uses extensively as a reference. For the record, Peter Worsley was a noted British sociologist and social anthropologist who gave us the term "Third World" along with other contributions. In the earliest version of his work Worsley wrote "Belief in Christ is no more or less rational than belief in John Frum." so he also recognized the disconnect there can exist between the founder of belief and a possible founder of actual history.

On a side note there is a similar issue regarding John Frum as with Jesus--thanks to the Guiart paper we have evidence that orally no longer exists that the movement may have had roots clear back into 1910s . So as with Jesus we have this record that at one time it was believed John Frum preached far earlier then his followers of the late 50s to present day believed.--BruceGrubb (talk) 17:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

That's fine, as long as the last sentence is as I have it about the current scholarly consensus, and references. Obviously, I'm not arguing Josephus was writing about Jesus as the Christians made/make him out to be; just that scholarship agrees Josephus wrote some of the text about the Jesus that was turned into the Christian Jesus.---Mona- (talk) 17:15, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

The "other wiki" is basically correct:

The extant manuscripts of the writings of the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian Flavius Josephus include references to Jesus and the origins of Christianity.[1][2] Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD (nearly 25 years after the first known Gospel, Mark, dated around 70 AD),[3][full citation needed][broken citation] includes two references to the biblical Jesus Christ in Books 18 and 20 and a reference to John the Baptist in Book 18.[1][4]

Scholarly opinion varies on the total or partial authenticity of the reference in Book 18, Chapter 3, 3 of the Antiquities, a passage that states that Jesus the Messiah was a wise teacher who was crucified by Pilate, usually called the Testimonium Flavianum.[5][6][1] The general scholarly view is that while the Testimonium Flavianum is most likely not authentic in its entirety, it is broadly agreed upon that it originally consisted of an authentic nucleus, which was then subject to Christian expansion/alteration.[6][7][8][9][10][11] Although the exact nature and extent of the Christian redaction remains unclear,[12] there is broad consensus as to what the original text of the Testimonium by Josephus would have looked like.[10]

Modern scholarship has largely acknowledged the authenticity of the reference in Book 20, Chapter 9, 1 of the Antiquities to "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James" [13] and considers it as having the highest level of authenticity among the references of Josephus to Christianity.[14][1][2][15][16][17] However, New Testament scholar Robert M. Price speculates that Josephus may have considered James a fraternal brother rather than a sibling.[18]

Almost all modern scholars consider the reference in Book 18, Chapter 5, 2 of the Antiquities to the imprisonment and death of John the Baptist also to be authentic.[19][20][21]....

Because manuscript transmission was done by hand-copying, typically by monastic scribes, almost all ancient texts have been subject to both accidental and deliberate alterations, emendations (called interpolation) or elisions. Both the lack of any original corroborating manuscript source outside the Christian tradition as well as the practice of Christian interpolation has led to the scholarly debate regarding the authenticity of Josephus' references to Jesus in his work. Although there is no doubt that most (but not all[66]) of the later copies of the Antiquities contained references to Jesus and John the Baptist, it cannot be definitively shown that these were original to Josephus writings. Much of the scholarly work concerning the references to Jesus in Josephus has concentrated on close textual analysis of the Josephan corpus to determine the degree to which the language, as preserved in both early Christian quotations and the later transmissions, should be considered authentic. However, based on the general expectation of what Josephus would have written on Jesus and the actual statements made by Origen and Jerome, the version used by Michael the Syrian and Agapius, the neutral reconstruction of the text has a reasonable probability of being what Josephus actually wrote as they would have had access to earlier copies of the Testimonium.[67]

---Mona- (talk) 23:36, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Again you are NOT reading what its being put in the article and acting like a revert monkey, again. The point that can be pulled from Carrier is based on what happened with John Frum and Ned Ludd was even if both passages were 100% genuine they STILL would not be evidence of an actual Jesus simply because we now have proof mythology around potentially nonexistent founders can form far more rapidly then was once supposed. More importantly this article is about evidence. Consensus is NOT evidence. Period.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:57, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

1. You risk having me totally tune you out if you continue with this adolescent "revert monkey" ploy. 2. The consensus of experts who use empirical, Enlightenment-based methods should generally be the provisional position of non-erxperts. 3. The Rules of Evidence, which have been developed according to Enlightenment values and endorsement of empiricism, allow expert witnesses to be asked whether their opinion is standard in their field or is a minority view, and the jury is allowed to take that into consideration when weighting their claims, and 4. this Frum/Ludd evidence does not appear to have persuaded the majority of scholars in the religious studies field, as their consensus remains what it is.---Mona- (talk) 01:00, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Then perhaps you should stop compulsive reverting without reading - David Gerard (talk) 01:31, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I do not do that [well, unless it's some obvious crankery or such], and did not do so here. David, your non sequitur is not responsive to my points 1-4. Which are supported by the other wiki, which in turn is well-supported. (I would not cite it if not for knowing it is accurate on the points at issue.)---Mona- (talk) 01:53, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but it can be PROVEN that you have done at least one WITHOUT reading what was added to the article. So you can NOT claim that you do not do that because it can be shown you have done EXACTLY that.

More over as David Gerard and I agreed this article was already insanely large to begin with and this stuff (which I might add is ALREADY on the Josephus daughter page) is just re-adding to the bloat. Ease of access on it own is not enough to add references when a RS quality source has been provided especially as parts of Boyd's Jesus Legend are just as accessible via Google books and amazon. Akhilleus and I tended to butt heads over on wikipedia regarding the Christ Myth article but I agree with his 2008 comment: "I think it should be a goal to use as little material from self-published websites as possible--almost everything relating to Jesus has been covered over and over again in print."

Also one of the concept of the Enlightenment was Uniformitarianism. When you can explain how the existence of Sun Tzu (who I may remind you was recored by a professional historian using actual contemporary government records) can be doubted but the existence of Jesus on far weaker evidence if a certainty conforms to the Enlightenment concept of Uniformitarianism then you may have a case.--BruceGrubb (talk) 02:58, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

"but it can be PROVEN" I don't think I did, certainly not wittingly. If I did it was because I took it to be the same thing I'd already reverted. And in any case, your mere rewording is unacceptable to me: Bruce, you seem to still not get what my issue is. I want the wording as I have it regarding the scholarly consensus and references to same. Again: I want the wording as I have it regarding the scholarly consensus and references to same. My wanting this is not arbitrary; I recite why in points 1-4 above. Moreover, this does not particularly add to the length of the article, at all. Indeed, one of your versions of that Josephus bullet has been longer. Now, I have holiday matters to tend to.---Mona- (talk) 03:35, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ In other words YOU DID NOT READ IT to confirm your view WHICH IS THE POIINT. this revert PROVES you are NOT reading the article and being a revert monkey. David is NOT presenting non sequitur but a DEMONSTRABLE FACT.--BruceGrubb (talk) 03:41, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

A different mythical topic

Several of you seem qualified to write about history and mythology and you feel 1912 and 1941 are too early to be reliable today. A different article needs work by qualified people. In the Myth article, The types of myths cites a book so up to date it was written in 1909 and nothing more recent. Does anyone here have time to review that article and provide better citations? Proxima Centauri (talk) 23:34, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks to bring that to my attention as the Jesus myth theory does have something more recent...and by a Biblical studies professor to boot. It is J. W. Rogerson's "Slippery words: Myth" which is in Dundes, Alan (ed.) (1984) Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth University of California Press ISBN: 9780520051928. His paper covers much the same ground Remsburg did in 1909 with the only difference is Rogerson doesn't classify myths in to distinct groups.

A little digging produced N. J. Girardot's 2002 The Victorian Translation of China University of California Press which on pg 592 talks about historical and religious myths in a foot note. The Future of Biblical Archaeology (2004) also uses the term "historical myth", Richard Walsh 2001 Mapping Myths of Biblical Interpretation also references the very same source Remsburg did (pg 97-98) and another source from 1974.--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:00, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

So - what does it matter?

So Jesus was either the Son of God or he wasn't.

Nobody here is suggesting that he was the Son of God so we are looking for evidence which would allow us to decide between a total invention, a composite invention or some real individual person about whom stories were later invented. And this is evidently quite difficult.

But in reality - what difference does it make? OK, it might have some academic interest to those who are professionally involved, but why should anybody else be bothered dancing on the pinheads of these different interpretations? Once you have discounted Magic Jesus why care which shade of Invented Jesus is closer to what happened 2,000 years ago?--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:18, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Antitheists feel that if it could be proven that even a historical Jesus that had a bunch of legends based on him didn't exist that it would presumably convince Christians to renounce their faith. Others may be interested in Jesus as a legitimate philosopher and so would like to prove an actual person existed and said some of the philosophy and it wasn't just the collective wisdom of a group of people.^{— Unsigned, by: 72.25.32.57 / talk / contribs}

Religious studies; productive and important SECULAR field

Contrary to some of the ill-informed statements made by some on this talk page, the academic field of religious studies is replete with fascinating -- and secular -- scholarly research and discussion. Perhaps a good example would be doctoral candiate (he may be doctored by now) Connor Wood. Wood blogs at Patheos, and I highly recommend that all in our exchanges here read his article: Why the religion-science dialogue needs secular religious studies. Among the more salient points, written after Wood attended a conference hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science:

Rather than coming from a confessional standpoint, religious studies scholars take a third-person, secular stance. From this angle, they try to learn what role religion is playing in people’s lives, communities, and cultures. This approach can irritate everybody; believers feel that their faith is being mechanistically picked apart, while the skeptical-minded sometimes wonder why religious studies scholars take religious belief so seriously instead of discrediting it.

And:

What’s more, a growing subfield of religious studies focuses on the cognitive and evolutionary roots of religion, also called the “bio-cultural” study of religion. This is what I normally write about here at Patheos. The bio-cultural study of religion is an exciting research field, with a tight family of progressing Lakatosian research programs that make predictions, can be tested, and offer much-needed explanatory depth. Insights into the cognitive foundations of religious belief could be the next big step in the religion-science dialogue, by offering clues as to why religious worldviews are so powerfully compelling, or what role religious rituals play in human cultures.

Very importantly for we skeptics to grasp:

Strong survival instincts are stirred awake when these [foundational webs of religious belief and institutions] are threatened – because for most of our species’ history, the community was the only thing standing between us and oblivion. The rituals and beliefs that made community possible weren’t just nice decoration. They were matters of life and death. Scientific and reductionistic explanations of religion make people tense up because we instinctively fear that, if faith is explained away, our communities and ways of life will fall apart.

Finally, Wood does see a huge problem in his field, but not the bias of Jesus-belief argued by some in our discussion here as being rampant and corrupting of the discipline:

Religious studies is a discipline in crisis. Although it’s the only field that trains experts specifically in religion – one of today’s hottest hot-button issues – religious studies is suffering major identity confusion, as its constituent subfields struggle to offer competing visions for what the field should be. This means that textual scholars have little patience for cognitive scientists of religion. Anthropologists and sociologists poo-poo psychologists. Lacking unity or even coherence, religious studies isn’t producing the serious public intellectuals who could bring much-needed expertise to bear on big questions of religion and society.

This is a tragedy.

Read his whole piece, as well as his other entries at Patheos. He's representative of the wholly secular, intellectually fruitful and compelling religious studies scholar.---Mona- (talk) 20:25, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

None of this changes a fundamental fact that the evidence for a Jesus in any way similar to the one in the Gospels is crap by the historical method.

Paul given NO clear historical frame work for the Jesus he is on about and the Four Gospels we have are only a fraction of what was known to have been circulating even in the mid 2nd century (i've seen estimates as high as 30 some Gospels) and those are historical, social-political, and geographic train wrecks as well tot he point that the read like historical fiction...bad historical fiction.

There is NO consensus on what parts of the Testimonium Flavianum are from Josephus; Tacitus at best seems to be repeating what the Christians in that area believed as other Christians give totally different accounts regarding Nero that are effectively the opposite of each other and the fact no Christian equivalent appears until the 5th century make the passage suspect.

Pliny the Younger and Suetonius only show the CHristians movement itself existed in the 1st to ealry 2nd centuries...something that only the most deluded Christ Myther denies.

Thallus requires so many non sequitur ad hod things to even work that it is insane that any scholar Religious or Biblical would ever present it as evidence for Jesus. It is so bad it come of as desperation that they know there isn't much and they need something, anything to help.

Everything else either is too late to be any use or is known only through what Christians claimed it said. Tertullian's claim about how 'We read the lives of the Cæsars: At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith." can be compared with the actual work and Suetonius says NOTHING TO SUPPORT THIS CLAIM. All Suetonius does say is "Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.". Suetonius says nothing about how the Christians were punished and given they are listed with what amounts to a general house cleaning of Rome it could have been something as simple as enslaving them or exile. This shows that we have to take anything the Christians say about a source even supposed quotes with not just a grain but likely a whole freaking pilar of salt.

James Burke showed in his Day the Universe Changed how science in general can hold on to a model in serious need of revision or replacement long after their shelf life. Heck the fields of psychology and psychiatry both highly secular are regarded with question regarding the quality of their methodology and they have been far longer then Religious studies and modern Bible studies. The Rorschach test is still highly used even though the US courts have ruled "results do not meet the requirements of standardization, reliability, or validity of clinical diagnostic tests, and interpretation thus is often controversial" (Jones v Apfel (1997)) and it was revealed that "many psychologists do not believe much in the validity or effectiveness of the Rorschach test" (State ex rel H.H. (1999)) as well as saying the test "does not have an objective scoring system." (US v Battle (2001)) And if field like psychology and psychiatry can lose their way that badly that they are using what amounts to psudoscience snake oil with regards to evaluating and treating something as important as mental health what does that say about relative new fields that based on the previous examples don't really hit their stride for many decades?--BruceGrubb (talk) 00:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I see.---Mona- (talk) 01:11, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Role of religious studies

This article had barely any, if at all, incorporated the excellent scholarship to be found in the secular field of religious studies. Yes, some of these professors are practicing Christians, but not all, by a long shot. It was my undergrad degree, and only one was a practicing Xtian, and she was a superb teacher. And not at all pleasing the the fundies who took her courses, because she practices linguistics, text analysis, and uses the historical method. One could not take her classes and learn that the New Testament was literally written by God or is literally true. Her scholarly praxis was the same as the non-believers in the field -- all she cared about was evidence.

We wouldn't write an article on evolution and only sight cite atheism blogs with no recourse to actual scientists. Neither should we ignore the actual scholars in this secular field. Indeed, they should be primary.---Mona- (talk) 01:26, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

NOTHING you are providing changes the model driving the data rather then the data driving the model issue Hector Avalos and Richard Carrier bring up. If anything Carrier is more fair then Avalos in that he points out that the exact same thing is happening on the Christ Myth side of things. This article isn't a sounding board to defend Biblical Studies which your edits have been. You want to do that then write an another article on Biblical Studies and provide a see more link to it in this article. The article is still ridiculously long and adding what can be more properly dealt with elsewhere doesn't help.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:17, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Whatever it is you are talking about has no relevance to the academic discipline of religious studies, a secular field. This site is predicated on academic approaches that value evidence, approaches refined during the Enlightenment and forward. Do you even know what "higher biblical criticism" is? Do you understand the revolution it caused in the 19th century, and the alarm among fundamentalists; that this scholarly approach directly caused fundamentalists to form and organize to fight academic study of the Bible? Do you know any of that?---Mona- (talk) 07:25, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

If you do not understand what is being talked about then why are you changing it? More over I am the one who added the part regarding Textual and Historical criticism under the Methods section:

"Since grammar, syntax, and rhythm help denote the period a piece likely originated from, Textual and Historical criticism are more helpful in determining when a work was originally written. For example, if someone in the 1990s hand-copied a work from the 19th century then paleographic dating would say it came from the 20th century but Textual and Historical criticism would show the work the copyist used was from the 19th. However what we have are copies of copies, which distorts and limits the temporal placement of the hypothetical original documents."

Both David Gerard and I have issues with your exits.--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:08, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to be polite. Your material is drek. The proper authorities for the historical evidence of Jesus are religious studies scholars -- people trained in the original languages, text analysis, the history of the early Christian documents -- canonical and otherwise, and the writings of such as Josephus. Do you know the things I asked you above?---Mona- (talk) 07:52, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Bruce, I must get to bed. I strongly suggest you lay out a logical, supported argument for why current experts in the field of religious studies are inferior to your sources. Because until you make a convincing case, and if I find you've yet again -- with no case having been made -- reverted my version, I will revert tomorrow morning.---Mona- (talk) 07:59, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

A PEER REVIEWED SCHOLARLY published work from 2014 isn't enough? Just WHAT are you looking for?--BruceGrubb (talk) 08:08, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Peer-reviewed by whom, and in what discipline? Because this is horseshit: "Then I discovered that the field of New Testament studies was so monumentally fucked the task wasn’t as straightforward as I had hoped ... the biggest thing I discovered is that every expert who is a specialist in methodology has concluded, one and all, that the methods now used in Jesus studies are also totally fucked".</ref> This is probably because Bible Studies/New Testament Scholarship tends to be dominated by theologians as well as located within departments/faculties of theology, rather than history." No, it's in religious studies departments. And often enough, when it is in theology departments, they use the same praxis their secular counterparts do. Those that do not, those are the ones we should both be arguing against. ---Mona- (talk) 08:19, 21 December 2015 (UTC)┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

This sounds like the nonsense skwills gave us in the disqus comments to the Richard Carrier’s mythicism in the Reason Advocates blog. Here was my response to that nonsensical insanity:

"In 2004, with two Sheffield colleagues, David J.A. Clines and Keith W. Whitelam, she founded Sheffield Phoenix Press, now a leading publisher in the field of Biblical Studies (www.sheffieldphoenix.com)." - Emeritus Professor Cheryl Exum

"Cheryl Exum and Keith W. Whitelam, Sheffield Phoenix Press, which has now published about 300 titles, making Sheffield again one of the leading sources of new research for the scholarly community." - Emeritus Professor David J.A. Clines

"Continuing the best traditions of publishing from Sheffield, it makes its aim to support scholarship with high quality academic books and journals". Phoenix has developed a distinctive presence among publishers serving the field of biblical studies.--About Phoenix Press

Carrier says the same thing in his book as he does in his blog...he just has to a lot more polite in the book then he is in the blog meaning it takes a while to say the same thing (about a paragraph or so). But if you insist I will use THAT.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:06, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Oh if this isn't enough there are now people trying to claim Carrier's peer-reviews somehow unusual. The desperation to ignore the FACT that there is finally something peer-reviewed that challenges the evidence for the Gospel Jesus existing would be comical if it wasn't so pathetic.--BruceGrubb (talk) 11:44, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

You are unreasonable

You absolutely may not delete another editor's talk page comments. It's verboten except for specific misbehavior not remotely at issue here. Before you did that, I had a comment ready to go saying: "ADDING - How about you do this: Start your own version of this section at your user page, working off of what I have written. You tinker with it, adding in what you think also has to be said from yours. Maybe we can find a version we are both satisfied with." But I don't think you can be reasoned with. First you block me for three days, then you deleted my comment here. You have a problem and do not appear to be able to play well with others.---Mona- (talk) 08:27, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

ADDING: Now you continue to edit war, after blocking me, deleting my comments, and refusing to discuss what is superior to your version over my reliance on current religious studies scholars. You should leave, walk the dog, go to bed, have a snack, whatever it is you need to do to get some perspective, calm down, and behave reasonably.---Mona- (talk) 08:31, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Thought I was in the main page but not looking at Carrier's book which says the same thing as his blog regarding the state of Biblical Studies and ignoring the work of Hector Avalos, a professor of Religious Studies at Iowa State University, ignoring 1924 and 2007 references that state there was 16th century a manuscript of a text of Josephus in which there was not a word about Jesus, using web pages to reference works rather then cite them directly (WHAT is so hard about having not 123 say Meier, Marginal Jew, vol. 1, p. 59, note 12; pp. 72–73, note 12, hmm? More over is this the Yale University Press or Doubleday version? Then there is the issue of there being several versions of this series: 1991, 2006, 2009, and 2016. Is this reference in all the versions? No idea.), another that uses information from 1995 when there are more recent sources that throw both passages out, and bede.org.uk which was kicked around the Christ Myth talk page over at Wikipedia and was found to be wanting in terms of reliability (see Akhilleus comment as to why it is not a good source shows it is YOU who is unreasonable and "should leave, walk the dog, go to bed, have a snack, whatever it is you need to do to get some perspective, calm down, and behave reasonably"--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:55, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Bruce, your sources are not useful at best, and crankish at worst. Let's take Avalos. He appears to be an atheist missionary out to end all academic study of the Xtian Bible, and writes (my commentary in brackets):

Biblical studies as we know it should end. Many scholars have told us that the Bible is a product of another age and culture, whose norms, practices, and conception of the world were very different from ours. Yet these very same scholars paradoxically keep the general public under the illusion that the Bible does matter or should matter. [Well of course! It's our history in our Judeo-Christian West. What an anti-intellectual thing to demand, and how asinine to suppose we should stop studying a sacred text that largely made our world what it is.] We have argued that whether they intend it or not, their validation of the Bible as a text for the modem world serves to validate their own employment and relevance in the modem world. [Bullshit, on stilts. Anti-intellectual drivel from a guy who appears to be a crusading atheist who is unhappy that the West still evinces an academic interest in its foundational religious texts.]

We have seen how translations, rather than exposing the alien and more opprobrious concepts of biblical authors, instead conceal them with gender neutral language and other devices. [It may be stupid, but it's not done for a nefarious purpose: Feminists wanted the gender-neutral language, so they got it.] Some are more blatant in endorsing two versions: one for the ignorant masses and one for the scholarly hierocracy. [Yes, how awful, the actual scholars traffic in the originals! (Gasp!)] Translations are a big business, and publishers seek to sell a product. To be successful they have to make the translations attractive to consumers. [Ok. And this undermines the academics how?]

We have seen how textual critics, even after knowing that the original text is probably irrecoverable, do not announce to most churches that their Bibles are at best constructs that cannot be traced earlier than the second century for the New Testament and the third century BCE for the Hebrew Bible. [It's not the fucking job of religious studies scholars to make "announcements to churches." Interested churchpeople can simply read the scholarship which is widely and freely available.] Indeed, Christians are still taught to believe that the Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts behind their translations can be confidently restored to what God intended. [Not by secular religious studies academics they are not.] Textual critics know that their audience will be greatly reduced if they shift their biblical study to the history of its constituent texts. [Don't know who these purported textual critics are, but none with this agenda taught me and all students in the class anything but about the diversity of constituent texts that make up the Bible.] Believers want the original, and nonbelievers don't care about textual histories.[I'm a non-believer who cares a very great deal about textual histories because all that is human is of interest to me.]

So, just can it all, declares Avalos. Please! Religious studies is entirely wed to the "higher biblical criticism" that emerged out of Germany in the 19th century. This approach, which studies the Bible like any other ancient writing finds many different human authors writing versions of events that are often contradictory one with the other. Moreover, clear political agendas can be seen and identified among different ancient authors of the Bible. This type of textual analysis yields data that is entirely fatal to biblical literalism, and it directly gave rise to the "Bible-believing Christians" of the early 20th century proceeding to reject the higher criticism with their declared list of "Fundamentals" -- from whence comes the term "fundamentalist." (See what this fundamentalist minister has to say about religious studies and higher biblical criticism.)

For me personally, learning in the religious studies major that Jesus myths drew on pagan ones, and that the contemporaneous Mithras cult had very strong parallels with certain early Xtian beliefs-- and almost certainly informed some of early Xtian doctrine -- these are just a few of many, many things I learned that greatly assisted me in abandoning Catholicism for atheism.

Finally, I'm just gobsmcked that Avalos thinks the field should pack its bags, as if there will be no new archaeological discoveries, or new technology that can help extract information from extant ones. Which leads me to a sub-section:

The Gospel of Jesus Wife

While Mr. Avalos is busy telling us there's nothing new to see here, this happened as announced by Harvard:

On September 18, 2012, Karen L. King announced the existence of a papyrus fragment dubbed The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife at the International Coptic Congress in Rome. In the months following this announcement, papyrological examination, scientific analysis of the ink and papyrus, and various forms of imaging were performed by multiple professional teams. These usually included comparative testing of a fragment of the Gospel of John in Coptic. No evidence of modern fabrication (“forgery”) was found. The results of these analyses do helpfully demonstrate a number of points, including:

• The papyrus material is ancient, and can be dated to the seventh to eighth c.c.e.
• The carbon composition of the ink, too, is consistent with ancient inks.
• Microscopic imaging was used to investigate whether the ink might be pooled in damaged sections of the fragment in ways that would indicate it had been applied after the damage had already been done. No evidence of such pooling was found.
• Careful examination was also made of certain letters, especially the all-important alpha on the heavily inscribed side of the fragment (“recto”) in line 4, which reads "my wife". If a sigma had been overwritten by this alpha, the meaning would have been changed from “the woman” to “my wife.” No evidence of overwriting is evident.
• King has also done more research on the history of what early Christians had to say about Jesus’s marital status and on the interpretation of the fragment itself. She argues that the main topic of the fragment is to affirm that women who are mothers and wives can be disciples of Jesus—a topic that was hotly debated in early Christianity as celibate virginity increasingly became highly valued.

And let me say about your reference to Jawara D. King & his World Transformation, WTF? King is a cult leader of some woo church, and fancies himself a "Jedi Knight" and Master of Wicca." Will you next be citing Deepak Chopra on the textual history of Josephus? pffft.

Bruce, we must stick with the scholarly field of religious studies. From the experts in that area comes all the best, reliable material for addressing the topic of the article on the historical Jesus.---Mona- (talk) 16:37, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Take a look at my ==Evidence and pseudoscience== section vs Mona' ==Evidence v. the "dogmatic method"== version.

My version starts off strong with a reference to a PEER REVIEWED 2014 work published by Sheffield Phoenix Press "a leading publisher in the field of Biblical Studies", that is "one of the leading sources of new research for the scholarly community" with an "aim to support scholarship with high quality academic books and journals". Yes, Mona's first reference is to Yale's various Religious Studies programs but that does NOT change Carrier's PEER REVIEWED SCHOLARLY PUBLISHED statement on page 11 of On the Historicity of Jesus that "this chief failing of the mythicists is much the same as the chief failing of the historicists. It's inordinately easy to make any theory fit the facts, or to make the fact fit any theory [...] A field that generates dozens of contradictory conclusions about the same subject is clearly bereft of anything like a reliable method."

In my section there is little tangental information how this mess may not the researcher's fault using James Burke and Gary Zukav as references. Sure not scholarly but it will get people up to speed on the issue and is clearer then Carrier is.

What comes next? Well I have a reference to Hector Avalos' ("Professor of Religious Studies. An anthropologist and biblical scholar by training") 2007 The End of Biblical Studies and it uses the exact same publisher as Gerd Lüdemann who is New Testament scholar. and Chair of New Testament Studies of University of Göttingen used in his 1999 book The Great Deception: Prometheus. Know what else Prometheus publishes? The Christ Myth by Arthur Drews under their Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion division and it is marketed as "a valuable sourcebook for students of religion, and all those interested in examining the origins of Christianity." despite it being from 1910. They also publish Carrier's Proving History. So he we have two biblical scholars looking at the same material and coming to opposite conclusions who use the same publisher who also markets a book from 1910 and print the non peer reviewed precursor to On the Historicity of Jesus.

So exactly HOW is Mona's version superior? I really would like to know.--BruceGrubb (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

"Carrier's PEER REVIEWED SCHOLARLY PUBLISHED" First, what little I have been able to glean from google, including from Carrier himself, he chose the peers to review his book. To understate, that is not how peer review, done properly, works. An editor is supposed to choose anonymous peers, unknown to the author. It seems as if Carrier simply chose his ideological friends. Second, his work seems to be fringe. I found scads and scads of reviews from atheist blogs, freethought sites, and the like. What I didn't find was a scholarly journal in the field of religious studies reviewing it. How is that any different from the Discovery Institute sending it's stuff to other ID proponents whom they know for "peer review" rather than to actual, and anonymous, mainstream scientists? Third, even if Carrier's work had been properly peer-reviewed, he is well-outside of the religious studies mainstream. We should be relying on the consensus of experts in an academic field; not on an outlier, espcially if his "peer review" process was as shoddy as it seems.---Mona- (talk) 17:34, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Bruce, can you locate a review of On the Historicity of Jesus in an academic publication? I looked, and could not.---Mona- (talk) 17:46, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Straight Dope Message Board has How Does Peer Review Work for Books in the Academic Discipline of History? and one of the commenters had this to say:

"The section for potential authors on Sheffield Phoenix Press's website says, 'Manuscripts offered by the author will always be sent for evaluation to a series editor or a reader for the Press.

http://www.sheffieldphoenix.com/authors.asp

That's absolutely standard for history books published by UK academic presses, although frequently it's two readers, often one of series editors and an outside reader.

Series editors will be major experts in the field covered by the series. That they are the editors of a particular series is not secret. Typically the one who will read it will be whichever of them is most qualified. If a second reader is used, this will usually be an outside expert. The series editors then take a collective decision on whether to accept the book. Obviously the views of the one who has read the book tends to carry the most weight. Given that one of the readers' reports will probably be by a series editor, it may not be too difficult for the author to work out who wrote that particular report. But the author will know that it's the series editors who have the final say anyway. The author may well also find out who the other reader was, as this is where the publishers get their blurbs from. Or the reader may just tell the author.

The process for collections of essays in history is usually much the same. Most academic presses will send them out to one outside reader. That's because the editor(s) of the collection will usually have invited the contributors to contribute and so cannot be considered independent.

Academic publishers will sometimes ask authors for recommendations for possible readers. But of course they do so in the full knowledge that authors will recommend names they think will be sympathetic. This can be used as a way of working out who not to send the book to."

So the process of peer review Carrier used is supposedly "absolutely standard for history books published by UK academic presses" and the academic publisher has final say regarding the approval of any reviewer that an author may present. Furthermore in the case of Sheffield Phoenix one of those reviewers will always be a "series editor or a reader for the Press".

Carrier seems to have the followed the peer review requirements our brethren across the pond have to the letter.'' You and others may not like it but that is the way it is.

A Rededit thread points out that Carrier is keeping a list of reviews on his book At 618 pages and given Carrier's expected 2013 publishing date didn't happen I would not expect a formal academic review of a book this massive this soon especially if it is a detailed critique of the work.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Also Bruce "The debate in a nutshell (The Two Jesuses)"

Searching for some of the other text in this artickle, I found someone who sounds just like you, arguing at the JREF message board. Touched on by Remsberg in 1909 classified by Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 (and used by Richard Carrier in 2014), and reiterated by Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004, these two ends (the italicized clarifiers are from Marshall) are:

Reductive theory (Remsburg's Jesus of Nazareth): "Jesus was an ordinary but obscure individual who inspired a religious movement and copious legends about him" rather then being a totally fictitious creation like King Lear or Doctor Who Triumphalist theory (Remsberg's Jesus of Bethlehem): "The Gospels are totally or almost totally true" rather than being works of imagination like those of King Arthur.

You were also having difficulty there convincing people about the merits of Carrier's positions. I do not accept the dichotomy you have set up in that section. At some point I will be editing it. Carrier is one guy. This "two schools" Reductive v. Triumphalist seems to be entiely Carrier's brainchild.

The reality is, Jesus was in all probability a Jewish preacher to Jewish crowds, one of a gazillion messiahs running around at this messiah-crazy time. Well after his death, a Jewish Roman named Saul, had a conversion experience, and it was his (he is now called Paul) incredible promotional and marketing abilities that spawned the religion of "Christianity." Jesus himself, the itinerant Jewish preacher, did not claim to be a god, and was not a Christian. His followers, lead by Paul, made him a god and sucked the Judaism out of Jesus.

The evidence for that basic narrative is overwhelming, as documented in a huge corpus of religious studies scholarship.

For the same reason so many Xtians have to have the evidence say Jesus actually lived, born to a virgin, died, resurrected and is in heaven, you want it to be true that no person named Jesus existed to be taken by Paul and transformed into the third part of the Christian trinity. But, your Carrier has a flawed argument, and is also a fringe voice as against a vast sea of scholars. Scholars who are anethema to "Bible-believing" Xtians for the crime of following wherever the evidence and historical method take them.---Mona- (talk) 18:49, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

"This "two schools" How on Earth did you come to that conclusion?!? Sure the names are his own but Resmburg in 1909, Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 , and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004 all say the same thing. seems to be entiely Carrier's brainchild."?

How on Earth did you come to that conclusion?!? Sure the names are his own but Resmburg in 1909, Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 , and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004 all say the same thing. Heck, I. Howard Marshall even spends a full chapter on the two historical Jesus; the one who is NOT "a totally fictitious creation like King Lear or Doctor Who" and other who deeds are NOT "being works of imagination like those of King Arthur." as the two ends of the historical Jesus spectrum. Marshall says neither extreme really works and that the "real" historical Jesus is somewhere between those two ends.

More over they are not "schools" but "general categories" (OtHoJ pg 26) BIG difference.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:54, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

"How on Earth did you come to that conclusion?!? Sure the names are his own but Resmburg in 1909, Rudolf Bultmann in 1941 , and Biblical scholar I. Howard Marshall in 2004 all say the same thing." Doubtful, and I've seen no evidence for it. Moreover, even if true, 1912 and 1941 are not remotely current. Carrier himself says he is one of only six scholars taking his position (he claims this is because Christian scholars won't see the truth, a baseless accusation vis-avis the secular field of relgious studies). Two are "independent scholars," two are emeritus professors, and 2 are teaching in the field. That's a whopping six against the entire field of religious studies.

And again, I don't know what went on at Sheffield press, but I do not consider a book peer-reviewed when the author picks his reviewers. Carrier did that, by his own admission.

Look, because there is a dearth of scholarly support for it, I reject the model Carrier adopts. It is not an accepted in the standard scholarly spectrum of consensus. I of course was exposed to Rudolf Bultmann in the course of my studies and simply do not see that he has any intellectual connection to Carrier's claims. (Bultmann was a practicing Xtian.) As for Marshall, he lived (and just died) an evangelical Xtian. I simply do not believe he argued Jesus did not really exist, that he was like an angelic apparition etc. The vast majority of scholars conclude that with messiah fever heavy in the air among Jews in Palestine at the time, that some Jewish guy named Jesus was likely just one of the many, many who either claimed it, or whose followers claimed it about him.

I'm sorry Bruce, I am not trying to inflame you, but the fact is I will eventually rewrite vast sections of this article. Not today or even tomorrow, but it will be coming. I want you to know that, if you plan to keep working on your version in the main article. We can't have the main thrust of the piece be the paradigm of an "independent scholar" who is a tiny minority in his field. As I've said, I hold a formal degree in this area and just can't live with an article that is so very intellectually wanting. There are only two fields in which I can hold myself out as an authority, and this is one of them. Sorry, but, my educated, strong opinion is that your positions and sources are not acceptable.---Mona- (talk) 00:20, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

First thing. What you consider peer review is irrelevant; what the UK academic publishing houses have as their criteria is what matters and if they allow authors picks his reviewers (as pointed out it seems the publisher can accept or REJECT those selections) then we have to accept that is way they do things.

Second you don't seem to understand what is meant by "two historical Jesuses". Again as I mentioned before there are something things called Christ Myth that if we use 'Jesus never existed as a human being' criteria simply are not. Frazer, Mead, Robertson, Resmburg, Wells from Did Jesus Exist on, and many others.

As I say over in the Jesus Myth article:

"This sampling over the course of 100 years shows the problem with defining the terms "mythist" and "Christ Myth theory"--the terms have been used with people have accepted the existence of a flesh and blood Jesus in the 1st century but do not accept the Gospels as an accurate description of the life of that man as well as those who say there is no flesh and blood Jesus to be found."

Finally, a rejection of the Gospel Jesus is not the same as Jesus didn't exist as a human being.

"In our introductory chapter we established two ways in which the phrase 'the historical Jesus' could be used [...] The first was to express the belief that the person called Jesus really existed, as opposed to the possibility there was no such person [...]The second way of using the phrase was to express the belief that the account given of Jesus in a particular book corresponds to what actually happened" [...] "We shall land in considerable confusion if we embark on an inquiry about the historical Jesus if we do not pause to ask ourselves exactly what we are talking about." - Marshall, Ian Howard. I Believe in the Historical Jesus. Regent College Publishing, 2004, p. 27-29.

Carrier puts it this way "even if we proved the founder of Christianity was executed by Herod the Great (not even by Romans, much less Pilate, and a whole forty years before the Gospels claim), as long as his name or nickname (whether assigned before or after his death) really was Jesus and his execution is the very thing spoken of as leading him to the status of the divine Christ venerated in the Epistles, I think it would be fair to say the mythicists are then simply wrong." Price says much the same thing: "For even if we trace Christianity back to Jesus ben Pandera or an Essene Teacher of Righteousness in the first century BCE, we still have a historical Jesus."

This article is NOT concerned with the Christ Myth but with the evidence regarding the one Jesus we have the most information on - the Jesus presented in the Gospels. And the evidence for that Jesus is very weak; historical and cultural irregularities abound. But that doesn't mean there wasn't someone there but was he actually in the time frame the Gospel give or was he moved for social-political reasons (Lena Einhorn suggests Jesus actually preached far later then the Gospels say, for example)? As I mentioned he else where Carrier's version of the Christ Myth has issues ironically suggested by the John Frum cargo cult he uses an example.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:38, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Apology

Bruce, I got pretty hung-up on the Josephus stuff and didn't really grasp some aspects of your over-arching approach until I went back to it in the last few days. The result was that I was more adversarial than "needed" to be because I over-construed the extent of our disagreement. So, I do apologize. Overall, your contributions to that article are very good. Much greater quality than is average here. Happy New Year!---Mona- (talk) 03:19, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

And this is part of the reason the article really needs to trimmed back; it is easy to focus on one section and miss stuff that is in another just because the thing is so huge. As I said before this article is about the evidence for a possible historical Jesus...consensus is NOT evidence; especially when the methodology seems to be wonked to blazes (Thallus being the poster child for that).

Some whit come up with the term Testimonium Flavianum Piltdownium regarding the consensus on the Testimonium Flavianum and it has been demonstrated with Miner that specialists too invested in a model will make observations and even conclusions with bias toward that model without even realizing it (Miner is an over the top satire of what his fellow anthropologists of the time were doing). I agree with Price's statement "My opinion is that John Meier and others are rewriting a bad text to make it a good one" but also agree with his position "The silence of the sources argument at most implies a Bultmannian version of a historical Jesus whose relatively modest activity as an exorcist and faith healer would not have attracted much attention, any more than the secular media cover Peter Popov today. It does not go all the way to imply there was no historical Jesus."

More over as I point out in this article Carrier implies with his examples of John Frum and Ned Ludd that the distance in time between Jesus supposed life and a possibly genuine Testimonium Flavianum (some 60 years) is more then enough time for the kind of story related in Josephus to be about a person who in reality didn't exist to form especially in the fact Josephus gives no details (Compare Josephus description of John the Baptist in JA 18.117-18.118 to that of Jesus and you find the later sorely wanting)--BruceGrubb (talk) 12:41, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

"consensus is NOT evidence" On that you continue to be wrong, across virtually any field. You can rightly say it isn't proof that a proposition is true, but it does constitute evidence that goes to the odds of its being true. This reality is implicated in our courts all the time with expert witnesses who can and will be impeached if they hold a very minority view in their field. Usually, the minority is wrong. Certainly not invariably, but usually. Moreover, it's not news that in many (most?) areas "specialists too invested in a model will make observations and even conclusions with bias toward that model." Nevertheless, specialists are the best that humans can come up with to determine the likelihood that X is true. Finally, I absolutely do agree the page is way too long. Unwieldy, even.---Mona- (talk) 17:27, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Your view regarding "consensus is NOT evidence" is to put it mildly silly. There was a consensus that Piltdown was a genuine find even though from nearly the get go people were questioning it; in fact as early as 1913 it was stated Piltdown was in reality "an ape mandible and human skull". In 1923, Franz Weidenreich stated the find was "a modern human cranium and an orangutan jaw with filed-down teeth" yet the consensus went on its merry blundering way until 1953. Piltdown is not just an example of a scientific fraud but how the model can so drive the data that next to no one sees (or worst wants to see) that something is way off. Even with the tools available in 1912 it could have been shown Piltdown was a fraud but it fit the model believed so well that the consensus effectively shut its mind down and ran with the find as genuine going as far as to reject genuine finds like Taung Child (1925) and Peking Man (at least until some 200 human fossils were found from 1928-1937).

Other examples of the consensus being found to be off the wall WRONG through unintended biases or limited knowledge are legion. At one time the consensus was Focal Infection in teeth was a totally valid theory (and today is seeing a revival even though the evidence is no better now then it was in the 1910-1950s then the theory was king), heliocentrism was a crackpot theory was was the existence of Troy, continental drift, the idea the Norse colonized the Americas, the idea of the Big Bang, the idea of Pre-Clovis settlement of the Americas, or that natives rituals were actually worth studying rather being written off as a belief in magic. Heck, it has only been in the last 250 some years that the consensus that Jesus was anything but what the Gospels portrayal (son of God, miracle worker, wildly popular preacher, etc) was challenged and only within the last century that the consensus of the more down the earth elements (like wildly popular preacher) have been challenged.

As for courts where is the consensus that eyewitness are the worse sort of evidence to give a jury, hmm? The professional academic papers on this being the case go back to the 1970s and despite some 40 years of consensus saying otherwise eyewitness testimony is still given a priority.

Consensus does NOT improve the odds that a belief is true. That said, if one is to say consensus is off its rocker one should present a Occam Razor quality theory regarding an alternative. And even historicists like Remsburg felt there was more to argue against the Testimonium Flavianum being genuine then for. To date I have yet to a reasonable explanation as to why all the people who did reference Josephus also missed the Testimonium Flavianum. More over as Goldberg showed there is such a high correlation of the Testimonium Flavianum with part of Luke (Luke 24:19-21; 24:25-27) that "the similarities are too numerous and unusual to be the result of accident". Goldberg postulated a here unknown source used by both Luke and Josephus used but Occam Razor suggests the more obvious solution of one using the other as a source. But if there was such a document then why did it say so little about Jesus and more over why didn't Josephus use what other sources Luke had at his disposable (assuming the c 90 CE date is right) to flesh out Jesus? Finally if Goldberg is right then that totally destroys Josephus as an independent source as he was using whatever source Luke used.

Again Occam's Razor suggests given the similarities to Luke coupled with the fact not one person before the 4th century mentions the Testimonium Flavianum points to entire thing being a Christian forgery based on Luke.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:50, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Non sequiturs, strawmanning and failure to understand my argument. This has nothing to do with eye witness testimony, altho in fact experts often testify that such testimony is, depending on the circumstances unreliable. Moreover, my view regarding consensus is, in fact, consensus. You are mistaking my position for being that the consensus on any particularity fact claim is never wrong -- or even not frequently wrong. I accept that it is manifestly true that consensus has been often been shown to be wrong. Nevertheless, the reason expert consensus is given weight by courts is because it is the best that humans can do. The "lone genius" is usually wrong, as are a small cohort of such "geniuses." The alternative to prioritizing consensus over minority views, in academic fields, is worse than not doing so. The burden is on the person(s) challenging the consensus to persuade with evidence and reason that the majority is wrong; until that happens (when it does), there is generally no reasonable alternative for laypeople than to opt for the consensus view.---Mona- (talk) 21:54, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

That all sounds like Science was wrong before. At any rate, consensus among who? Among astrologers, there is the "consensus" that the planets and stars affect our lives. This is obviously nonsense. If there is a consensus among Christian theologians that Jesus existed, then I would be wary of this consensus. If the consensus is among secular historians, I would be more careful in going against it. Carpetsmoker (talk) 22:02, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Carpetsmoker, wtf, why did you address this to me: "That all sounds like Science was wrong before." Um, no. Bruce is the one who was making the "science was wrong before" argument. He hurled Piltdown man and some other stuff, as if I were arguing expert consensus is never wrong. Everything I wrote on that topic was to assure him that I understood this (irrelevant) point. It was not my argument.---Mona- (talk) 02:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

The scholarly consensus on Jesus is laughably bad; even non-mythicists that align closer to Ehrman and Atheists that explicitly point out that the existence or non-existence of a historial Jesus isn't even important to the struggles of Atheism will attest that the current consensus is remarkably poor, and is literally used as an appeal to authority in the educated discussions of today. That being said, 95% of the totality of Mythicist positions have been utter crank. I'm with BruceGrubb and you on this one, Carpet. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 22:20, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll be inserting a number of sourced statements that will help reflect the barren poverty of the current historicity consensus. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 22:21, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

And I'll revert them if they mean to "reflect the barren poverty" of the secular scholars in the religious studies field.---Mona- (talk) 02:29, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

And if they are of RS quality I will be restoring what Reverend Black Percy adds. You don't own this article, Mona; stop behaving like you do.--BruceGrubb (talk) 07:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

"I'm with BruceGrubb and you on this one, Carpet." -> Ho now, I don't have an opinion here. I was just making a remark on the value (or lack thereof) of "consensus". I have no idea what the situation *actually* is on this topic. Carpetsmoker (talk) 22:26, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Well, I stand by your statement if nothing else. There's a remarkable honesty among several non-fringe "consensus-inclusive" biblical scholars who are themselves faithful and who certainly push historicity, who still underscore (in a move of great professionalism) that you still have to have faith to actually allow for that literal leap from I'd-like-this-to-be-true that allows you to treat the possibility of historicity as evidence for historicity. In any real sense however, the current state of the appeal to consensus is an absolute farce; one which has been demonstrated as such in peer-reviewed literature. Much like the mythicist camp has been pre-Carrier (add or take), for the record. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 22:33, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Not so much as Science was wrong before but the consensus was wrong either as the result of limited tools (as with heliocentrism) or that it didn't fit with the model used at the time (nearly everything else). For example, Einstein was so locked into the model of a steady universe prevalent in his time they he kludged his general relatively equations with a universal constant. When later observations showed the universe was expanding (which his equations without the constant predicted) he labeled the thing the "biggest blunder" in his life. Ironically, even later models of the universe need that kludge to explain concepts like Dark Energy.

Carrier points out in OHJ pg 6-8 that the majority of Christ myth is nonsense often "weighted down by with an enormous array of elaborations, which are often significantly less defensible then the core theory alone would have been" and flat out states on page 12 that there is a lot of bad scholarship on the Christ myth out there. In fact, the only version of the Christ myth Carrier even bothered to give the time to try and seriously read (because of many of them up to that time he had bothered with were seven levels of crazy, nonsense or both) was Doherty's The Jesus Puzzle.

Indeed, the true straw man is accusing the historicist agnostic/modern mythicist position of entering the discussion on the grounds of the "Science was wrong before" trope. The fact is that comparisons to other fields aren't overtly useful; the current peer-reviewed field of biblichal archaeology and of the study of the historical Jesus is a field that is vibrant and alive with awareness that a paradigm shift is already past the bell curve of transforming the internal concistency of the discipline. And let none argue that there's ever been a shred of physical evidence of a historical Jesus. Ever. Though; beyond completely ridiculous forgeries, countless proto-psychotic claims of visitations inside the minds of particular individuals, and a complete clusterfuck of conflicting literature which, upon any coherent system of textual analysis (from philiological or hermeneutical study all the way to the Bayes Theorem) is just riddled, like the walls of an airport bathroom stall, with white noise, overwrites, contradiction and general drivel. If the canonical scriptures were a hard drive, that hard drive would look like it'd been randomly userswapped between heavy duty RAID cloning and at random intervals being taken through various half-assed attempts at formatting, to multiple attempts to switch file structure on the drive. And then imagine backing over it with your car. It's like you can't even tell if it's a dummy OS trucrypt drive or if it literally suffered through a fork attack halfway through an unsafe defragmentation. In short; the fuck. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 23:14, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Yet "vibrant and alive" is NOT the same thing as 'knows what the sam hill it is doing'; a basic reading of Bruce Trigger's 1989 or later 2006 A History of Archaeological Thought will show that the field of general archeology in terms of theory and philosophical methodology is wildly fragmented. Heck, in 1989 there were still parts of the world where some variant of the old Imperial Synthesis era of the late 19th to early 20th century still held sway even as other countries abandoned that method as being too biased toward Nationalistic ideas (Miner's 1956 was as much against the remnants of that old Imperial Synthesis mentality as it was about how the model was driving the observations and data). Heck, about 40 years ago Dunnel and BInford debated if style had an archaeological detectable social function for nearly a decade and best anyone got from it at the end was "perhaps". One cannot look at any scholar who presents Thallus as evidence as evidence NOT ask are you serious?!?--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Bruce, this is the third time you've invoked Thallus. I haven't cited Thallus, and to my knowledge haven't cited anyone who does as support.---Mona- (talk) 02:22, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

You point to consensus and the consensus is that Thallus is evidence. As long as you point to consensus Thallus is right there..and is a poster child for a methodology clearly off the freaking rails.--BruceGrubb (talk) 09:15, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

"[...] and the consensus is that Thallus is evidence." Really? I was of the impression that this "consensus" was limited to those arguing for biblical literalism. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Thallus (spelled Thallos in some works) pops up so often in works both religious and secular as evidence that he is one of the usual suspects along with such non starters as Pliny the Younger and Suetonius (a movement is not evidence of a founder per Ned Ludd and John Frum) and any scholar who presents these two also demonstrates that religious studies needs Historical Anthropology to come in and ask just what in the name of sanity religious studies thinks it is doing....other then demonstrating it has no basic understanding of Historical Anthropology methodology...even as it existed in the 1980s...some 30 years ago.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Rev, Carpetsmoker, you seem completely ignorant that the field of religious studies is secular. My BA in that is secular, received from a secular, state university. (I was already an atheist when I discovered this area fascinated me; you can be assured I'd have been uninterested if this was just a bunch of religious bullshit. Fundamentalists in these classes were frequently very upset.) The consensus I'm talking about is not akin that of "astrologers." Moreover, many of the nominally Xtian people in the field don't believe in any of the miraculous claims about Jesus; they are more into: "I believe there is Something, and this is the tradition I am expressing that in. All kinds of approaches will do as well." These are people who read Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and who are trained in hermeneutics, textual analysis and other sorts of reputable scholarly praxis. While it's true they may sometimes incorporate work from those identified as "theologians," this has to pass standards for bona fide scholarship. Many theologians are so "liberal" in their approaches they aren't considered Xtians by many Xtians.---Mona- (talk) 02:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Which doesn't explain why Sun Tzu who existence is documented by a professional historian (Records of the Grand Historian) who used earlier official records and noted their limitations (like how some of the older records "disagree and contradict each other throughout") and flat out stated "I have set down only what is certain, and in doubtful cases left a blank" as well as the Spring and Autumn Annals and whose writings (Art of War) you can hold in your hands...has no consensus to have actually existed. How does that make a lick of sense given the far poorer quality of what is for Jesus?

I should point out being secular doesn't mean religious studies has fully shed its religious roots or the Great Man theory. As documented by Trigger archaeology and anthropology carried their old 18th century antiquarian and Imperialist baggage clear into the 20th century. In many way the Christ Myth was a Great Moment concept that needed an actual cohesive mechanic rather then grab what ever is laying around and use that...even if it made no blasted sense. System theory (popularized in Burke's Connections in the 1970s) is very new to general history as is historical anthropology and general historians are still trying to get a handle on using either field to a fraction of their potential.--BruceGrubb (talk) 10:21, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

(EC)My problem with these claims about a consensus is two-fold:

1. Who counts in this consensus (and who doesn't)? For example, the University of Copenhagen ran a "Gospels without Q" research project only a few years ago, yet Copenhagen U's Faculty of Theology is both (as far as I know) a well-respected one, while a "Q-less" model for the creation of the Gospels is clearly not the consensus model. Which leads to the second part of my objection:
2. The degree to which assumptions substitute for actual data to avoid the dreaded "We don't know"-answer. Sure, there's a lot we can say about theology and the development of Christianity (or any other religion), but it seems to me that the huge box labelled "???" on such issues as a historical Jesus (definition, existence, characteristics) tends to be filled with extrapolations based on little more than the least damaging version compatible with the theological view of the scholar. Thus we get authorities in theology promoting a host of radically different Jesuses (as per the numerous "quests"). Similarly, we get all kinds of versions of Testimonium Flavianum genuineness, from "It's all true" to "It's all interpolation" and a tendency to what appears to me as a split the difference compromise trying to accommodate both ends of the spectrum, claiming that some of the TF is true, but not even a consensus on which parts are then genuine (though the "He was the Christ"-bit tends to be rejected by most non-literalists).

The problem seems to me to be that we demand answers but simply have insufficient data on several of these topics pertaining to Christianity to actually provide answers with much, if any, degree of certainty. That means relying on a consensus which is pulled in several directions by anything from fundamentalist biblical literalism to avowed atheism and various types of liberal or "secular" Christianity in-between.

That said, I think that Bruce's version seems overly informed by a criticism of a literalism that I'm fairly sure isn't the mainstream view at secular universities' theology departments/faculties. ScepticWombat (talk) 10:49, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

If there is no literalism then why does Thallus keep getting used as evidence even in secular sources? Thallus only serves literalism regarding the darkness that covered the area claim in the NT; it has no other purpose! Thallus as evidence is to the Pro-Historical Jesus position what Zeigiest is to the Christ Myth; it is the poster child of just how bad things can get. That any scholar can present Thallus as evidence of Jesus is prime example of just how off the rails bonkers the fields of Religious Studies and Bible Studies are.--BruceGrubb (talk) 16:38, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

ScepticWombat, I largely co-sign what you wrote. As I've said, I earned my BA in religious studies at a secular university. Now, I graduated from that program in '91, and it's possible some great upheaval in that or other fields have taken place in that would uphold Bruce's approach in it's entirety, but to the extent I've made efforts to stay somewhat current, I don't think so. When Bruces writes this (my emphasis): "how off the rails bonkers the fields of Religious Studies and Bible Studies are" he becomes unreasonable. Ranting about Thallus does not redeem his unreasonableness.---Mona- (talk) 19:41, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Trying to ignore that Thallus is presented and accepted as evidence isn't going to make the issue go away. Denying there is an issue as demonstrated by Thallus as well as Pliny the Younger and Suetonius being presented as evidence for Jesus just shows that you have two fields in serious need of reevaluation of what they sam hill they are doing.--BruceGrubb (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Bruce, you clearly have an idée fixe on this Thallus thing. Here's the problem with this fixation of yours: 1. You merely assert that reliance on Thallus is pervasive religious studies scholars, even tho ScepticWomabt has a different understanding. 2.Even if relying on Thallus were some horrible error, which may or may not be true, 3. that one error would not invalidate an entire academic discipline. 4. You seem to think I am frantically hoping this Thallus matter will "go away." I assure you, I merely find your fixation tedious, irrelevant and wholly unpersuasive.---Mona- (talk) 01:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ There is a daughter article on the issue of Thallus. To sum up we have what is effectively a reference (not even a quote) of another writer who is also making a reference (we think because that writer's works are lost) and because Eusebius has a reference an "allos" what seems to be regarding the same work (but on a total different manner) it is said it is the same work. If that isn't jaw dropping goofy enough Eusebius says the work ranged from the sack of Troy (1184 BCE) to the 167th Olympiad (which ended in July, 109 BCE). So to get this thing to fit we are told the numbers are corrupt and Eusebius really meant the 207th Olympiad (ending in July, 52 CE) or the 217th Olympiad (which ended in July, 92 CE) ie to get things to fit Olympiads ending in 7 that are late enough to include Jesus are pulled from who knows where. That is the level of insanity in using Thallus as evidence for Jesus. This makes using a Boar War causality list with a John Watson on it as proof of Sherlock Holmes really existed look rational!--BruceGrubb (talk) 06:42, 4 January 2016 (UTC)