Talk:Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ/Archive8

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Oooh, Carrier book imminent

Blog post. "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". This is gonna be popcorn time! - David Gerard (talk) 16:56, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

thing is that's a pretty common conclusion in history. For example Victorian navy history. Should be pretty easy. Not that long ago and plenty of war nerds interested in it. Then they started restoring HMS warrior and well Andrew Lambert's conclusions are not exactly complementary. ^{— Unsigned, by: Geni / talk / contribs}

Where's the gospel?

Just something I thought of the other day...Jesus, should he have been a real person, appeared to be a (by Biblical accounts) an educated and well-spoken individual. And I doubt I would find a Christian who would disagree. So where's the Gospel according to Jesus? If he was the MLK Jr, or Cesar Chavez, or Elie Weisel, or even the David Koresch of his day, how come he didn't write anything down? -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:33, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I don't think this is a good answer, but Socrates didn't write anything down, either. His students did. It could be that, assuming the Bible has a limited basis in history, that he was a teacher figure in an oral tradition rather than a written one. And considering how different students of Socrates distorted Socrates... I am really not suprised that Jesus has so many roles. And if he was a real person in an oral tradition, he would be a preacher in that tradition rather than a philosopher, thus likely attracting a different kind of students and a different later interpretation of those students' works. ±KnightOfTL;DR^{walls of text while-u-wait} 16:38, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Jesus was not well educated, and he was mostly likely illiterate. the vast majority of jews of the day, learned what they knew from oral renditions of the torah. He was a reformer, especially in the area of politics and the rights of his own people. He was trying to make sense of a world where jews were being slaughtered for fun. That's the general background of any prophet from Mohomhud to the Ghost Dance Shirt guy, Wovoka. You see injustice but know you have no power to change teh world, so you change how your own people feel: "there will be a better time and place". He would not have written a gospel, cause he wasn't trying to start a new religion. He was just trying to help people survive in the religion they had, while living in the political world they had. Godot What do cats dream about? 16:41, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

How do we know he wasn't well-educated? Still, seems to me there would be at least one first-hand account of his speeches, if not many, potentially even from a Roman. But none exist in history. Amazing. -- Seth Peck (talk) 16:48, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The way he's described, teh kinds of things he's talking about, and what we know of people at the time. Yes, anything is possible. It is possible that he was the only educated carpenter in the entire world, but not likely. If you were not of the rich priestly class, your education would have been limited (his listeners fall into this category, which is why no one wrote things down... or why they didn't likely write things down), paper would have been far out of the price range of a bunch of laborors in and around the area. and if you HAD money, or were a priest (generally often the same thing), you wanted the regime the way it was. You didn't want a religious revolution, cause you were making money off keeping god to yourself. Godot What do cats dream about? 17:17, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Provide one first hand account of a speach of Pontius Pilate who was a serious player in the region. We don't have any (well unless you include the bible). Heck we have a had time proving that Pontius Pilate existed let alone anything as detailed as a speach.Geni (talk) 15:46, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

This article would have had enough work to be a serious gold candidate, except that with the Carrier book imminent, and Ehrman already openly making academic threats against mythicists (and Carrier calling him on it and other historicists diving in and and and), the area will promptly become very lively indeed. Popcorn time - David Gerard (talk) 16:52, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

The question "How do we know what Jesus' level of education was?" is really the same as the question, "How do we know anything about Jesus. And that's what the article is largely about isn't it?--Bob^{"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."} 17:11, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Still, seems to me there would be at least one first-hand account of his speeches, if not many, potentially even from a Roman. I don't think many Romans witnessed his speeches, from what I know of the Gospels. Also, first hand accounts are a rarity in pre-modern history, and this is a recurring problem in historical research. Even among the educated and literate, accounts of events usually tended to only be written by people whose job it was to write them rather than people directly involved, and often years or decades after the events they related. As KoTL says, we only know the sayings of Socrates from accounts written by others after his death. Same goes for Confucius or the Buddha, or nearly all of the Old Testament prophets. ΨΣΔξΣΓΩΙÐ^{Methinks it is a Weasel} 19:40, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

It's also important to remember the context of who you are dealing with. By most academic accounts (read: "educated guesses"), the first groups Jesus would have been preaching to are small and inconsequential. Sure, the Gospel writers say thousands and thousands, and "known throughout the world', but those are both common poetic metaphors to suggests "lots, cause dude he was cool". Would you be writing down the words of your local paster? Or if your sheriff in the old west was running for some small town, would his words appear in any newspaper, if there wasn't a local paper? Not likely. too small, too insignificant, too common in an era where everyone and his dog was a prophet or revolutionary. Godot 15:57, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Biblical history as pseudohistory

The historicists are currently going apeshit, proclaiming all mythicists to be cranks (and Ehrman openly threatening them) but somehow never mentioning the name Richard Carrier, and ignoring his name when people ask "do you mean Carrier?" ... because they know he's an actual historian and they're starting to suspect they're not.

(There are indeed crank mythicists, but anyone putting Carrier in the same box as Acharya S. is a fuckwit.)

I want to wait for more fallout, but this article is going to need to note this.

The real point of the first volume of Carrier’s book, in fact, is to show what actual historical methods are, and how woefully deficient methodologically Jesus studies in particular is.

"Biblical historians" are not historians like the historians of comparable eras. Their lecturers tell them they are, but this is false. (I'm not sure it's a conscious lie - I've no doubt their lecturers told them the same thing.)

Skeptics look at the methodology of Biblical historians and say "that's epistemologically ridiculous, what is this shit." Biblical historians then get huffy and say that they use the methods of history, and if you don’t like their methods, you must be a pseudohistorical crank.

Except biblical history does not use the metholodogy used by the rest of history. Richard Carrier spends large chunks of Proving History on this precise point. He researched the methods of Jesus studies in detail, and summarises his conclusions:

Then I discovered that the field of New Testament studies was so monumentally fucked the task wasn’t as straightforward as I had hoped. Very basic things that all scholars pretend have been resolved (producing standard answers constantly repeated as ‘the consensus’ when really it’s just everyone citing each other like robbing Peter to pay Paul), really haven’t been, like when the New Testament books were written ...

... because 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 ...

That is: when Biblical historians appeal to "you’re throwing all of history under the bus", this is a lie. They are, in fact, in the opinion of actual experts on non-Biblical ancient history, the pseudohistorical cranks, attempting to dress themselves in the colour of proper historical practice.

I want more than Carrier as a reference before putting it in the article (right there in the second section). Wait for the big fights to really get underway. Heck, I might be wrong - David Gerard (talk) 09:06, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Again means nothing. In the absence of infinite funding there are large chunks of history that are like that. Of course there is also the issue that the fairly narrow focus of "Jesus studies" (whatever that is) means that conventional modern historical methodologies are pretty meaningless since conventional historians have abandoned that field to those pejoratively refereed to as antiquarians.Geni (talk) 16:00, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

If you are not merely being querulous for the sake of it, you would appear to be saying that "we can't achieve perfection, so therefore obvious bullshit that is entirely within range should be allowed to walk". If you are merely being querulous, of course, do feel free to continue - David Gerard (talk) 16:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

To give D Gerard some credit, the field of New Testament studies is indeed filled with both outright pseudo-history and fringe history, and sometimes it's hard to tell where to draw the line. Furthermore, as I have posted elsewhere on this page you have a whole bunch of vested interests in Jesus studies (fundamentalists, liberal Christians, fans of Gnosticism, Jewish historians, and I will include atheists as being somewhat of a vested interest as well.) Robert Price has noted the only person who came up with a reconstruction of Jesus embarrassing to ALL the vested interests was Albert Schweitzer (though Price is a mythicist and Schweitzer is not) whom Hector Avalos considers to still be the best Jesus scholar ever (I don't know if Avalos is a mythicist or not- David Gerard fill me in if you know). And occasionally, wide consensus among good professionals turns out to be wrong (as in the case of Ptolemaic astronomy and Aristotelian physics- both smart guys whose theories ruled for millenia but were dead wrong). So I look forward to what Carrier has to say, but I hope Carrier does well sifting out the various strands of the diverse schools. That would be significant factor affecting how credible I would find his arguments.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:35, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The other field of history which is just as bad is Arthurian studies. Lots of pseudo-historians (Laurence Gardner) and fringe historians (Geoffrey Ashe) flock to it like flies.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Scholars who do not think there was a human seed for the myth of Jesus

If you look at journals, and not pop-culture writing, I know of 4-6 scholars, including Carrier (and I really can't make heads or tales on why he says "there is no Jesus at all", cause he doesn't give any valid evidence why the Jesus human seed is not likely). In fact, historically speaking, if there was no jesus, and it was totally made up, from scratch, that would make the religion more unique in human kind than dying and rising. In fact the article that WP links to, to discuss Carrier's views, talks about "mythological like Paul Bunyon". Yet most scholars of mythology and folk lore (see Indiana University's DeMallie) think people like Paul Bunyon were real once (he argues that Myth and Folklore are different from works of fiction, and are almost never pure inventions). to say "many scholars think that Jesus never existed" would mean more than 5 or 10, wouldn't it? Unless you know of journals outside of the history, history of religion, and religious studies journals that I've seen. Godot On a perdu le contrôle 16:57, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

As far as I know Carrier, Price, and Doherty, and George Wells are the only significant scholars who think Jesus never existed.--WickerGuy (talk) 16:59, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Unless he's changed positions since the late 90's, WElls doesn't even claim there is no Jesus to seed the myths, just that by the time xianity means ANYTHING, via Paul, it has no relevance to any real world experience and is a greek influence Hebrew myth ONLY. but again, i've not read much on these topics since I taught.Godot On a perdu le contrôle 20:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Wells was indeed earlier a full mythicist and then later concluded the Q sayings might be an authentic set of core teachings. He is still generally thought of as a mythicist.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:53, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Mythicists do not, in and of themselves, discount the historical existence of a dude named Jesus who was the seed of the religion/myths. They challenge the value of that "knowledge", in the sense that "it's irrelevant if a jesus walked or did not walk - the myth and the religion that comes from Paul do not depend on what some dude hundreds of miles away may or may not have ever said". I think we try to make that clear, here. I'm dubious if we did, however.Godot On a perdu le contrôle 22:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I think that what you state is Robert Price's position. I think some others are more hard-core, but I'm not sure if it's any of the really notable ones.--WickerGuy (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Generally, the section currently under dispute leans towards stereotyping all historicists as being probably Christian fundamentalists. This is simply not true.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Didn't Hercules die and rise? -- Seth Peck (talk) 17:52, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, and so did Persephone (though neither did so allegedly to atone for anyone's sins in a sacrifice). Many Americans believe Elvis Presley is alive, but although this is almost certainly false, no one doubts Elvis' existence as a result, not does one doubt the existence of many other celebrities even though a lot of tabloid gossip about them is false. At any rate, what is the point with regard to this section?--WickerGuy (talk) 18:30, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Re the other comment

While the historicity of Paul Bunyan is debated, it's fairly tenuous, as is that of King Arthur (the vast majority of historians think Arthur to be virtually all legendary). A more interesting case is Robin Hood where there seems to be an almost 50/50 split among historians many of whom take a position of absolute agnosticism as to whether there was a historical Robin Hood or not.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:33, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

On that (the Paul B), I was mostly being whiny, cause I get tired of citing to non academics. I need to "get over it". ;-) But on the main page, I just want a more neutral tone. "many" ain't it.Godot On a perdu le contrôle 20:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Also of note

The earliest Christians did not think Jesus was God, and they saw his resurrection as a herald/omen of the end of the world as well as his death as an atonement none of which is not true of Hercules or any other figure from Greco-Roman mythology.--WickerGuy (talk) 15:17, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

More popcorn

Carrier on Ehrman. Severely disappointed fan. He is not happy with the book. Academic bloodsports, go go go! - David Gerard (talk) 13:56, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

As usual, Carrier's language is overly harsh regardless of the merits or lack thereof of his argument. I suspect this habitual language is the reason why he has not found employment in academia.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:14, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

And especially sad, as Ehrman was very kind to Carrier in the book.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:31, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and he decries the book as a "murder of trees and electrons". I think electrons get transferred and not destroyed when books are made.--WickerGuy (talk) 19:13, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Form instead of content

Carrier castigates Ehrman for saying “there is no penis-nosed statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican or anywhere else except in books like this, which love to make things up” (p. 24). Ehrman assures us it exists, but then admits it is probably only a statue of the Greek god Priapus which probably has nothing to do with Peter. Ehrman is citing D.M. Murdock who actually says it is a statue of a rooster/cock which is in turn a symbol of St. Peter, which Ehrman may have conflated into a claim of a statue of Peter. Big freaking deal!

Some of Carrier's other points are more interesting and provocative however. Lunch is over. Back to work.--WickerGuy (talk) 20:00, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Ehrman's book (or the 4 chapters I reviewed, I admit) is not nearly as bad as Carrier makes out. Carrier is, as always, so agenda driven, so prejudiced in his views that I am dubious he could read anything about Jesus without those feelings creeping out all the fuck over the place. While I largely aggree with the "jesus as myth" guys when they are not duped into thinking as atheists out to disprove xinaity, and feel that by and large, it remains irrelevant if Jesus the man walked and talked, cause the myth took over his message within 100 years of his death - I cannot and will not buy into Carrier's ideas that "therefore jesus didn't exist". His single greatest argument is "cause we don't have any texts about it". We have texts, 18+ of them, but he discounts them because they are mythologized by the time we "get" them. We have references to churches that are teaching in the name of Jesus. And yet that is not "proof". Come on, Richard. Find one other place in history where people made a religion in someone's name, who was fully fictional. It just doesn't happen. I mean, it does to day (kathulu, FSM) but those are made with a particular intent not of worshiping them, but of making a point. I'm as disappointed in Carrier as Carrier is in Ehrman. I'm always wishy washy in regards to Ehrman, but he is not **that** bad historical academics, for heaven's sake.Godot 20:28, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I imagine Carrier would say that the likelihood of there being an historical Jesus *that we could identify as that historical Jesus* given the mythical stories about him have no bearing on his historical life is very low. How would you even identify that *this* Yeshua was *the* Jesus? There may have been several Yeshuas who were preachers. But once you accept that all the NT 'evidence' is better explained as being about a mythical being rather than a real person, you have no evidence left that *can* point to a real person, at which point assuming the existence of a real person costs degrees of freedom without any additional explanatory power, and thus is less likely than such a person not existing in the first place. OTOH, plenty of ancient religions had no real person behind them. Unless you wish to claim Zeus, Attica, Romulus, Osiris, etc... were all based on real people. The overwhelming majority of religions in the history of the world have no evidence for their deities having once been real people. So at what point do you get to privilege the hypothesis that if we have a deity then its built around a real person who was euhemerized? Rather we should doubt *any* religion's deities are based on real people unless we have specific evidence to the contrary. --69.209.53.13 (talk) 10:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

First of all, Jesus is not a god, and was not in any of the early writings. Comparing him to Osirus or Zeus is a rather weak comparison. Comparing him to mythic figures like Zorothustra, White Buffalo Calf woman, or LaoTza is a more correct comparison. Secondly, if you knew shit about the academic study of Mythology and myth making, you would know that by and large, virtually every mythical human figure, and the stories about him or her likely have real world roots. Even stories about zeus, hera, and the like, are often mytholizations of real world events, cause that's how humans have explained their world for 1000s of years. To do so differently for the dude jesus, is to just reset the rules cause you don't like this one religion. Had Jesus become nothing - had he been another Jewish teacher and prophet written about amongst the 10 or 20 we know of, and the 100s mentioned in 1st century documents, no one would even think to suggest the NT, Paul's letters and the mention of a handful of churches following teh teachings of this dude were not sufficient to prove he existed. It's funny that Carrier spends so much time talking about how "we don't apply the same rules to Jesus" in trying to prove jesus *didn't* exist, when really, he's the one on the odds with how scholars have long dealt with most ancient referents to people. --Godot 13:57, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Carrier claims contra Ehrman that the resurrected Egyptian god Osiris did actually return to earth after being revived, rather than just living on as King of the Underworld. For his source, Carrier cites Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 19.358b. It's true that according to this citation Osiris came to Horus from the other world to train him in battle, but it's really a visit to the earth from the "other world" on Osiris' part, not a general presence on earth. Ehrman is simply repeating the point that has been made before (for example by David J. MacLeod in The Emmaus Journal. Volume 7 #2, Winter 1998) that Osiris' resurrection is unlike Jesus since Osiris reigns & lives mainly among the dead. Ehrman may be overstating his case here, but Carrier doesn't address Ehrman's point about the resurrection of Jesus having an apocalyptic significance not found in other dying/rising stories.--WickerGuy (talk) 20:39, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

What the Fuck? That Greek version of Horus and Osiris is hardly the accepted academic standard. So is he for actually doing strong academic work, or for finding someone who says something somewhere that makes your argument? I don't understand. Cause there are tons of references to exactly what happens in the Osiris and Horus story, and trying to make it any kind of seed to the Jesus myths makes little to no sense. Oh by the way - fucking 2000 years earlier than jesus, thank you. sighs....Godot 02:04, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

That's Ehrman's main point. Carrier is simply picking on a technically wrong statement (Only for slightly overgeneralizing) that if sloppy is more due to sloppy style (I say) than sloppy substance (as Carrier says).--WickerGuy (talk) 14:05, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Jesus lives and reigns mainly among the dead after his resurrection too. Even if we accept the NT wholesale he returns 3 days after his death, chats with some people, lets them put their fingers through his newly perforated parts, and then departs to his heavenly abode. His 'return to earth' is just a visit. But that's hardly Carrier's point - Carrier's point is that Ehrman should have done that research himself, its Ehrman's job to be technically correct. As far as Jesus's resurrection having an apocalyptic aspect which Osiris's doesn't... that's a nice 'No True Scotsman' fallacy you're developing. But surely it wouldn't hurt Ehrman to *admit* that there are parallels in the Jesus story to other mythological constructions. His particular historical Jesus doesn't depend on Jesus's *mythic* story being unique. --69.209.53.13 (talk) 10:06, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm entirely familiar with the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, and I'm not quite sure how it applies to the point about Jesus' resurrection being viewed apocalyptically. The point that Ehrman makes is that most pagan dying and rising gods exist to explain recurring cycles of nature spring, summer, winter, fall, and so forth, whereas Jesus' resurrection was held to be a herald/harbinger of the final cataclysmic conclusion of human history. Nor do any of the dying and rising pagan deities have anything to do with atonement for sin. As such the return of Jesus from the dead has a fundamentally different character and flavor. My own paraphrase of Ehrman would be we aren't just talking chocolate and strawberry ice cream. We're talking ice cream and sherbert. A more minor point is that Osiris reigns in the underworld, not from the heavens in the sky. Furthermore, Ehrman argues that people in rural Palestine in 1st century had minimal exposure to this pagan form of mythical thinking.

Re your earlier point, the notion that the Biblical Jesus may be a composite of multiple personalities is an interesting one which I find a bit tempting. But the real question is whether or not the New Testament is more easily explained as being about a mythical person or about a real person. Tim Callahan (who writes frequently for Mike Schermer's Skeptic magazine) and of course Ehrman think that re Occam's razor it is actually simpler to assume there is a real person seen in a distorting & shaded mirror behind the New Testament figure of Jesus than otherwise (I suspect Callahan wrote the SkepticWiki article on the subject). I myself tend to think that given the wildly conflicting claims made about Jesus in the New Testament (why were his parents in Bethlehem, when did he die, etc.) it is actually slightly more plausible that this is a magnetic and charismatic real person. I would expect a greater degree of internal consistency in the stories if Jesus was entirely mythical. This argument has been made by Christopher Hitchens here [1] (You can skip to 2:48 in this video). Given any kind of wildly fantastic deity such as Zeus, it seems rational to presume their non-existence, but what of human founders such as Buddha, Mohammed, Lao-Tzu? The lives of these folks are shrouded in mystery. Only one of the four Gospels claims Jesus was divine. But on legendary figures generally, no historian thinks the default position is to presume non-existence. (As Carl Sagan put it, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence") Historians are 50/50 on the historicity of Robin Hood because of the shortage and porousness of the evidence. (Though we can be quite certain that Maid Marian and Friar Tuck are inventions since they only appear in very late versions of the story.) The balance of consensus is that King Arthur is probably entirely mythical (there are holdout historians like Geoffrey Ashe), but there are positive reasons to assert this, not merely the absence of evidence. On the other hand, some folk heroes about whom many historical tales have been told are verifiably real people. Can you tell me off the top of your head which one of these people is complete fiction, and which are real people whose exploits have been massively exxagerated? Paul Bunyan, Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone?...Paul Bunyan is the completely fictional one. John Henry's historicity remains debated!! (the guy that Pete Seeger and the Smothers' Brothers used to sing ballads about.) Professor Scott Reynolds Nelson, argues that John William Henry (a prisoner in the Virginia penitentiary, released to work on the C&O Railway in the 1870s) is the basis for the legendary John Henry. No one knows for sure. But no historian would argue to presume as a default JH is fiction. Nor should anyone for Jesus of Nazareth.--WickerGuy (talk) 04:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

With apologies for long-windedness, but the depth of Ehrman's fallacious thinking here really is appalling. I'm numbering to keep distinct trains of thought truly distinct.

(1)The reason it really starts looking like a 'No True Scotsman' is that the history of historicity reasonably goes something like: "Jesus is unique in that he was resurrected" (obvious objection) "Jesus was resurrected *and* returned to earth" (Obj: Osiris, probably others, eg Persephone, Inanna, etc..) and now "Jesus was resurrected *and* returned to earth *and* was the harbinger of an apocalyptic end." Eventually if you tack enough qualifiers on you've limited the reference class to just the one 'true Scotsman' you were trying single out. So what if Jesus has a unique trait not seen in any other resurrected god? Synchretism is *rampant* in the creation of new religions and change of old religions as they adopt new traditions.

And just because Jesus has a new trait compared to other resurrected gods does not mean that the other parallels don't exist or stop mattering. It would be like arguing that hominids aren't related to other great apes because of our novel features. Shared derived traits are evidence for a relationship. Every taxon has at least one unique trait - if it didn't it wouldn't be a new taxon. Ie, (assuming we've discovered a unique trait) we know Jesus is Jesus and NOT Osiris because he has this novel characteristic. That doesn't mean the myth isn't *related* to or *derived from* or (partially) *inspired by* the Osiris myth or a similar myth. Humans having a chin makes us *distinct from* chimpanzees, but *not unrelated* to chimpanzees. Ehrman's claim is effectively that because of this one novel character Christ is unrelated to every otherwise similar myth, and that's just methodologically and logically wrong.

Its not like there weren't also other apocalyptic gods and messiah concepts known in palestine in the 1st century AD. And it doesn't take a genius to go 'what if we combined Apocalyptic Messiah Concept X with Resurrected God Y?' Indeed, this stuff happens *all the time* in mythology, especially during the Roman period. A whole range of stories accreted to Zeus/Jupiter as he was synonimized with other deities. Romans were quite keen to identify foreign gods as the same ones they worshipped, and composite characters frequently resulted. (See Roman documentation of the gods of Gaul, for example). Unlike biology, mythological memes rabidly crossbreed.

And its not even clear that Ehrman has done his homework to show that no dying and rising gods specifically, nor more generally no contemporary gods known in the vicinity of Palestine had these qualities he ascribes to jesus. To claim no other god has such qualities he would need to be able to enumerate every single relevant deity and cogently discuss their qualities with reference to sources to show that not a single one of them was at all comparable to Jesus. He'd also have to be able to give some argument against the plausibility of a composite deity with those characteristics arising given all those characteristics exist separately in gods in the area. And the same lack of information about *real people* would also plague any enumeration of deities known in palestine so that an absence of evidence would hardly be conclusive. Not only is Ehrman methodologically wrong in his claims, but the same absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence he wants to use as a shield against the mythicists also shields their claims from any real damage he could possibly do here.

While not from Palestine, I might note that Odin is a dying and rising god who *hangs himself from a tree* (note the cross can and has been referred to as a tree) and who lives in 'heaven' as conceived by his believers, visits midgard (earth) repeatedly, and is part of an apocalyptic tradition! Now, I'm not going to claim Odin influenced the myth of Jesus (no merit to be had), but clearly that assemblage of beliefs was not so far-fetched since it was independently arrived at by a people in an entirely different mythological climate. The only part missing is salvation from sin, easily explained by the lack of a tradition of 'sin' in Norse mythology or its neighbors, whereas 'sin' was an established concept in Palestine and among Jews in particular.

(2)I wasn't arguing for multiple people creating a composite actually. My point was that if all we know was that his name was 'Yeshua', which Yeshua do we point to? Its not an uncommon jewish name in Palestine at the time. There may well have been several Yeshua's who were Rabbi in Palestine during the 1st century, even assuming we could identify one. If the rest of the Gospels is taken as untrustworthy or mythical (see later) then we have no way of identifying an historical figure around which the myth crystallized even if we were to have perfect census records and profession information for every person who lived in Palestine in the 1st century. Essentially, the hypothesis that there was an historical Jesus requires us to *know real things about him* that would *distinguish him from other possible Jesus's*. If I told you that you really had to meet 'Bob' in New York City with no other information, how would you know who i meant?

(3) Contra-Ehrman, its very clear epistemologically that the burden of demonstrating likelihood in a debate about the existence of something is on the side claiming its existence. More particularly, miraculous beings (mythic figures) are even less likely to be real than non-miraculous beings. So while we might give Robin Hood a slight benefit of the doubt, if Robin Hood conjured food for the poor from nowhere and teleported his way out of danger we'd be rather inclined to doubt his existence. (I'm not even sure why we'd suppose he might have existed in the first place, but I'm not familiar with that literature at all). Arthur is actually a great parallel in a lot of ways to the case of Jesus - even if an historical Arthur existed, the stories we have of Arthur tell us nothing about him or his life. What isn't cropped straight from myth is the invention of much later authors using him and his court to enshrine by metaphor, example, and analogy the values of their culture. There may well be an "Arthur", "Artorius", or some other similarly named chieftain, lord, or king somewhere in the British isles. There may have been several. They have *nothing* to do with the fictional and mythical Arthur. Similarly, there were certainly Yeshua's living in Palestine in the 1st century. (Note, the name is *usually* transliterated as Joshua, Jesus only got special treatment because of his theological status, not any unusual features of his name). There may have been several rabbis, teachers, etc... of the name. None of this tells us that the myth of Jesus coalesced around one of them, or tells us anything about his life. We'd need specific details we knew were true statements of his life that we could match to the life of one and only one Yeshua to identify an historical Jesus.

(4) If its simpler to assume a real person than not, then why do we not hear about the historical Zeus or the historical Osiris? Where is the historical Ishtar? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd guess historians would laugh anyone who tried to find one out of the profession. It certainly isn't the case that Zeus is *less human* than the Jesus of the Gospels. The Gospel Jesus is a mouthpiece with no real depth whatsoever. Zeus loves and lusts and hates. The whole point of the Greco-Roman gods is how human they are. Its not like Christ is somehow less fantastic than Zeus. He conjures food, transmutes matter, defies gravity, heals by touch, raises the dead, and is raised himself. Its not that Jesus is *legendary*, he's a *deity*. And even legendary figures should raise a healthy amount of skepticism, given that *Homer* is widely considered to not have existed. I would be truly surprised to hear any modern historian talk of an historical Hercules.

(5) But the real problem here is that the Mythicists have *positive* evidence against the existence of Jesus. Even ignoring records like Philo (who even visited Palestine during Jesus's supposed ministry and yet totally fails to even so much as mention him), which are absences that are *notable* because they would have been expected to make mention of him if he existed, the mythicists can and do point to the earliest Christian writings - the Pauline Epistles. Jesus is not a real person to Paul, very explicitly so. His Jesus is solely revalatory, communicating doctrine that Paul heard from *no person* (see Galatians). The Gospels come later, based on oral traditions that had likely changed greatly over time. Current consensus has *all subsequent Gospels* dependent on Mark (even John). Even the existence of a Q is in debate. And much of them is rephrasing of OT passages into a new narrative. On the one hand this means that the gospels - at best - qualify as only a single piece of evidence for the existence of Jesus (written by people who never knew him and likely never knew anyone who knew him, assuming Jesus existed). If the oral traditions go back to Paul then they have clearly changed much (and still have nothing to do with anything resembling an historical Jesus, since Paul specifically claims that his teachings don't come from other people but from revelation alone). And others may have originated their own oral traditions totally independent of Paul - we know that Paul met Peter and James, and he tells us that their teachings come *from revelation and not man*. So even if we grant multiple oral traditions about Jesus, we have no evidence they come from a real person named Jesus and our best evidence tells us that the only true teachings of Jesus come from *revelation alone*.

(6) Ultimately, assuming an historical Jesus is an assumption of any model that does so. If that assumption adds no explanatory power, then there's no reason to make that assumption.

(7) Contradictory statements increasing your confidence in an historical Jesus is absurd. Thought experiment time:

Assume you have two criminals whom you know were together and believe committed a crime. Like any rationally trained detective, you separate them into two different interrogation rooms and then question them individually. Both of course protest their innocence. Would your belief in their truthfulness increase if (1) they told stories that were mutually compatible or (2) told wildly inconsistent stories where the details actively conflicted. But its even worse than that. We KNOW 'Matthew' had 'Mark' to work with, so criminal two gets to *listen to* criminal one's story before being interrogated, and he still tells a story with gross and blatant inconsistencies. Not only should your estimation that he's lying increase, but you'd have to conclude that he's a *really bad liar*.

This evinces a terrible model. If its in agreement, its likely true because 'multiple sources' (used very loosely) agree. If its in disagreement, its likely true cause no one could possibly tell a lie that bad. What evidence would cause you to disbelieve in an historical Jesus in this model? I can't even imagine any.

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 07:00, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

The last is a good example of the problem with biblical history - the terrible, really obviously shit epistemology it touts. Criteria that would result in utter absurdity in any other field are put forward as "how history is done". As Avalos and Carrier have noted, that claim is in fact a lie - David Gerard (talk) 08:12, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't have time to address this too much, but BON's points are rather common in the "Jesus isn't special" group of non-historians who want to prove the invalidity of a religion by proving Jesus did not/could not have existed. At least if BON's ramblings are to make sense. In history, by and large, if we find *any* reference to a person, we generally assume that they are likely real, and look for dis-confirming evidence. "fiction" did not really exist, in the sense of "I'm going to totally invent a person, and write about them and the doings of their world". Given the nature of historical evidence for anyone during a time when not only were few records kept, but even fewer would have survived, you say "ok, it is likely this guy is real - now let's see if that holds up."

The single funniest thing for me, in Carrier pushing this rather unsupportable and frankly stupid idea that "jesus simply did not exist", is that he distracts from the much more critical, much easier to "prove" and "study" idea about "does it matter if a dude jesus started a bunch of churches? Cause this dude Paul and then the church at large created an image that has nothing to do with reality". That's where the power of study is, but this nonsense of trying to disprove Jesus existed (vs., trying to assess what he might have said, which parts are clearly mythologized, what kinds of things a 1st century jew would have had access to, etc) is just a magician's side show - poorly done. Godot 13:48, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Whoa, there's getting to be too much mudslinging in here, though the "magician's slide-show" remark is rather witty. I myself am quite open to the idea that the Biblical myths concerning Jesus are syncretistic of Greco and Jewish mythology, but I wanted to clarify what Ehrman's argument is in more detail.

If the methodology of Biblical history is so different from classical history, why then did closeted atheist and trained classical historian Michael Grant after turning his attention to the Gospels become a convinced historicist. His main work was in studying characters like Tacitus, Nero, and Cleopatra. He chose to turn his attention to the New Testament and was thoroughly convinced by the historicist literature, producing a work of his own Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels with an entire appendix defending the historicist case. I am unconvinced that the methodology of Biblical historians is all that bad.

I am also unconvinced that Paul regarded Jesus as non-historical. It is true he has these revelations from a risen Jesus (which seem a bit like epileptic seizures), but that does not mean he viewed Jesus as having not recently lived. Moreover, the Gospels seem to come from oral traditions that are independent of Paul as evidenced by the way the first three Gospels show no interest whatsoever in Paul's distinctive understanding of Christian atonement nor carry out Paul's attacks on Jewish Law. (Matthew's account of what Jesus says about Jewish Law is very difficult to reconcile with Paul.) The (first three, especially first two) Gospels don't play like a radical morphing of Paul at all. They seem rather to be an independent tradition! In this regard, assuming a historical Jesus most certainly does add explanatory power, and makes the assumption of a historical person!! (Points 4 & 6 by IP above).

Ehrman's case on dying and rising Gods is heavily based on recent work by Jonathan Z. Smith who heavily challenges James Frazer's thesis about the recurring motif of dying and rising gods. Smith for example notes that tales of Adonis rising from the dead are all late....after Christianity, thus he argues that Christianity colored the Adonis myth rather than the other way around. I am not myself qualified to judge Smith's work on this subject. However, his work has been very influential among classical historians as well as Biblical ones. Smith has an entire book Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. He is a general historian of his religion, and his PhD thesis was on James Frazer. He thinks the claim of multiple dying and rising gods in various religions is based on slanted readings of ambiguous texts.

Regarding the contradictory statements, I am particularly interested in the ways that (as Ehrman has argued in earlier books) that the four Gospels really represent very different theologies (as Ehrman once even says four different religions) To justify the different theologies, they must make all kinds of distinct additions to the storyline. The fictional bits are the bits that can be traced to their theological motivation. Ehrman and many many others before him argue that there are other bits of the Gospels which don't quite fit these theologies but which the Gospel writers have to include because they are stuck with them. In particular, except for Mark (where Jesus becomes promoted to Son of God at the resurrection), it really doesn't make sense in the context of the other three Gospels why Jesus would be baptized by John the Baptist. But they include it because they are stuck with it. This is what Ehrman calls the "criterion of dissimilarity". Ehrman also identifies various parts of the Gospels as historical on the grounds of what he calls contextual credibility. It makes sense in a first-century Palestine context. On this grounds, he rejects the conversation with Nicodemus about being "born again" as failing that criterion.

Criminals are trying to convince policemen. Gospel writers are trying to convince their disciples. I don't really follow the interrogation analogy, but I will think more about it. But I think while the burden of proof on extraordinary claims of the miraculous is indeed on the one making the claim, but in the case of the more mundane claims about an itinerant preacher giving the Sermon on the Mount the default position is, I think, simple agnosticism.

IP, you aren't David Fitzgerald by any chance? You don't have to answer. You can always go to my Wikipedia page and e-mail me.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

PS you are correct that the Gospel Jesus isn't portrayed with a lot of depth. That is of course why Kazantzakis' The Last Temptation of Christ was popular with many audiences. However, Jesus is only considered God in the Gospel of John, not the other three.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:38, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Me: "The epistemology is ludicrously for shit." You: "Well, this other guy was convinced by something vaguely in the field!" Argument that others were convinced by bad epistemology (and not even that epistemology, but a broad "I liked it" about a piece of the field) does not make bad epistemology good epistemology, even in several paragraphs - David Gerard (talk) 15:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'd never heard of Carrier before, but he sure seems to think a lot of himself. "renowed"..."avid fans"..."I can officially say that it ...contains badly worded arguments." Really? Precisely which office does he hold that gives him the power to make such pronouncements? Godspeed (talk) 15:04, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Richard Carrier - David Gerard (talk) 15:39, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

He is also one of the (new athists? I hate that term, so if one has a better one...) the more aggressive "atheism is the RIGHT thing, and all else are dumb", seriously "anti religion" views. I've had a hard time seperating his academics (on such matters, anyhow) from his bias, so I may be more snarky than warranted. But i really think his underlying motivation is "jesus is the core for a religion that holds 80-90% of american people hostage", rather than "is jesus really historical".Godot 16:06, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

This is you projecting motivation onto him, as you attempted to do onto mythicists in general in the article. He says he doesn't consider mythicism near-certain, just more likely, and the Ehrman position of a barely-recognisable seed as the next most likely option. But as an expert you know that, right? - David Gerard (talk) 16:55, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Gerard, you've created a very silly caricature of my question. Perhaps I need to be more clear. "This other guy" (michael Grant) is a professional ancient historian who taught at Britain's top universities who was convinced by a large extensive body of Jesus-historicist literature which he spent well over a year studying in detail. He was not convinced by something "vaguely in the field", nor did he merely "like it"- he wrote three whole books on the subject of Christian origins. My question is simple and straightforward. If after spending much of his career writing professionally about Caesar, Alexander, Cleopatra etc., he then turns to the field of New Testament studies and fails to detect any slipshod methodologies in the latter field, I need better convincing then mere assertions that the methodology of Biblical studies is crap. And Carrier's online essay simply asserts the methodology is crap without explaining why.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:33, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

You've failed to answer 69.'s question about ludicrously bad methodology, which I was following up on. You have written a series of extensive Gish Gallops and then failed to answer those who even bother engaging with them; this is evidence that you did well in debating at seminary, but is merely problematic in writing. Do please go back and answer 69.'s original question, and see if you can do so without ad hominem or your hamfisted attempts to out them. You also appear blind to the name "Avalos" - David Gerard (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I avoided debating anyone in seminary as I was far more agnostic than most of my fellow students, as are most of the students who enroll identifying as Unitarians. I regard Duane Gish as an idiot, and I don't know what you mean by "outing" anyone. Hector Avalos book "The End of Biblical Studies" argues, correctly IMO, that an awful lot of Biblical Studies is driven by marketing considerations. But reviews of Avalos' book state that Avalos says there has been "no progress in Biblical studies" since Albert Schweitzer, whom Avalos holds up as a gold standard. But Schweitzer's view is pretty much Ehrman's view! (Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who thought the end of history was coming in an imminent cataclysm.) Avalos is also critical of attempts to make the Bible relevant to the present day. This is also pretty much Ehrman's view (see the section where he says Jesus is TOO historical) as well. Avalos is also very critical of the Jesus' seminar, but other scholar's in Ehrman's camp are equally as critical of the Jesus seminar (notably Paula Fredriksen whose views are essentially identical to Ehrmans. PF told be personally that the Jesus seminar pretty much conceives Jesus as a 20th-century liberal Christian, when he was in reality a 1st-century Jew, much harder to make relevant to the present world. This embodies much of what Avalos' argument is, I believe. [Sorry, I've only read snippets of Avalos and I don't have a copy handy]). Yes, there's this muddy mix of seminary-based Biblical studies and secular Bible scholars and a confusing overlap between the two, and Avalos is correct to express concern about this. But I don't know what bearing this has on the historicist-mythicist debate. And while much I have offered here is in the way of tentative suggestion and modest query, where the FiretrUCK have I ever ever made an ad hominem attack an anyone??--WickerGuy (talk) 18:30, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Re the specific methodological issues raised by IP 69. I don't think I am sufficiently well-versed in ancient history to answer them- I can only try to clarify Ehrman's position. Ehrman clearly believes that re the Jesus story/myth and the Greek dying-and-rising gods, Ehrman believes we are not dealing with humans and chimpanzees, but dolphins and sharks. They kinda look alike but are utterly different in origin. I am not enough of a ancient world scholar to adjudicate that question (My undergrad degree is in late Medieval History- I did my Master's thesis on the poetry of William Blake), but Ehrman's position should be argued on its specific merits, not by sweeping attacks on the field of Biblical studies (which is admittedly far too heavily riddled with ideological agendas from scholars of every persuasion from fundamentalist to liberal Christian to fans of Gnosticism and esotericism).--WickerGuy (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

WickerGuy,

I am not David Fitzgerald or anyone you would have heard of in connection with the field. My interest is solely amateur (and as one might guess from my use of an evolutionary biology analogy, my training is in that field). I am, however, capable of critical reading and logical analysis.

Other people's ability to be convinced is not an argument, no matter how emminent. Why they were convinced may hold an argument for why others should be convinced, but you would have to communicate that. The fact of their conviction means nothing. (Your argument that Michael Grant was convinced so we should be too is an Appeal to Authority, which is a fallacy). If the 'why' cannot be articulated, I refuse to guess, and will do what I should be doing - judging the evidence on its own merits. So I don't care *who* Michael Grant is; the only thing that matters is *what arguments has he made* and *with what evidence*.

Now, as I am not an historian, and certainly not a NT historian, I'm also not about to condemn the entire field's research practices since I don't actually know how widespread any particular method is. However, having heard about particular practices, which, if used as they have been described, I am well-inclined to condemn those particular practices wheresoever they may be used. For example: 'contradiction -> evidence of truth' is total bullshit, it epistemologically bankrupt. (As demonstrated, I'm not going to belabor the point further than I already did above).

With respect to Smith (whose work I have not read), but demonstrating Adonis may post-date Christ doesn't even come close to demonstrating that all dying and rising gods post-date Christ. And we *know* there are dying and rising gods who predate Christ by *thousands of years*, that those gods had active cults in the near east and the Roman Empire in and before the time of Christ, and that they would have been known to people in Palestine. So I would be rather surprised if Smith claimed to show that *all* dying and rising gods post-date christ. And that's just the ones we have records of! Mystery traditions ran rampant through the Roman Empire. As you may have guessed, the 'mystery' part is they tried to keep their beliefs a secret. (As we know things about some of them, they clearly didn't always succeed). Many of these likely never had any written record of their beliefs - a state of affairs that was rather intentional. So while *absence* of records of Jesus's birth, trial, and death are plausible just due to poor preservation, absence of a complete list of belief systems in the area and at the time is plausible by *intention* of the myth tellers. Add poor preservation on top of that and there's no serious way anyone can argue against some dying and rising gods being known in Palestine before and during the supposed 'time of Christ', even if we couldn't demonstrate some who were (which we can: eg, Osiris among others). Consider the hypothetical world in which Christianity didn't 'win' - would we have even heard about it at all?

Paul on Jesus: I think Paul's epistemology is rather telling. He doesn't know of an historical Jesus. "I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ." (Gal. 1:12, NIV) But not only does Paul know of no historical Jesus, he argues that the fact he only knows by revelation makes his knowledge better! By this we can infer something of the nature of accepted epistemological reasoning of the church of Paul's time. Truth is not accessible by eye witness accounts and verifying details. Knowledge taught or gained from man is disparaged. Revelation is the only way to gain true knowledge. At the very least Paul believes this. He seems to believe the "Galatians" would find this compelling. And when he then holds in esteem Peter and James as the disciples it can't be because they actually knew the man. That's not a persuasive reason for Paul. Their authority can only be recognized on the basis of their *own* revelations, otherwise Paul would hold himself above them, not seek their approval for his ministry. Ie, Paul, who believes revelation is the only avenue to truth, also holds the 'disciples' in esteem. The conclusion is inescapable. Not only does Paul not know an historical Jesus, but whether or not the disciples know or were even aware of an historical Jesus is *not relevant* to Paul. It can't be, his epistemology doesn't permit it. And because he's using this epistemology to establish his authority with the Galatians, he must believe that it will do so - that others in the church held the same epistemology that he did.

So even if there are multiple Oral Traditions in early Christianity (something the above model predicts actually - there's no reason to believe Peter's revelation is going to agree with James's revelation is going to agree with Paul's revelation), there's absolutely no evidence any of those oral traditions are based on _history_, and active evidence that historical fact would *compromise* the *integrity* of those revelations. This epistemology of the early church actually tells us that 'Jesus, a real person, said and did this' would not have been seen as good evidence but 'Jesus came to me in revelation and said this' would have been.

Regarding the gospels - I will completely grant that they represent different theological viewpoints. But that doesn't argue they are independent. Just like I could read Marx (for example) and rewrite his ideology to advance a different agenda. We KNOW 'Matthew' and 'Luke' used Mark. Its been argued 'Luke' also had access to Matthew and there is thus no Q. Modern consensus says even John used Mark as its basis. So even if they represent different viewpoints, there's no reasonable way you can argue they are independent sources of evidence about Jesus. And as long as they're trying to skew their presentation to favor their own theology, details that change could well represent parts they *theologically object to* rather than actual different sources. (Its also been pretty conclusively demonstrated that Mark is mostly just a recombination of OT passages given new context. Which is pretty damning in refuting any substantive historical basis it might have).

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Your points about Michael Grant are very well taken. I brought him into the discussion, because many mythicists see a contrast quite specifically between methodology in Biblical studies and classical/ancient history studies, and Grant is one fellow I know very active in both just those two fields, and migrated from first doing Greek-Roman studies to Biblical studies. So I raised him with regard to the contrast being developed. Grant does have an entire Appendix outlining his version of the historicist case in his book on Jesus, but while interesting is less persuasive than Ehrman. I'm not citing Grant so much in favor of historicity, as in favor of reasonably sound method.

As I have posted, I am in no position to evaluate Smith's arguments on dying and rising Gods. I am trained in medieval and modern history, not ancient history. I simply know Smith has been very influential. Ehrman also of course makes a great deal of the traditional hostility of Jews to Greek mystery religions. However, I am prepared to be convinced mystery religions influenced Christianity.

However, you've lost me when you say "And when he [Paul] then holds in esteem Peter and James as the disciples it can't be because they actually knew the man." Paul speaks of Judeans who both killed Jesus and are now persecuting him, and speaks of the risen Jesus appearing to Peter! Paul certainly believes revelation trumps other sources of truth, but I see no evidence he thinks of it as the only source.

I am mainly contending that the first two Gospels are entirely independent specifically of Pauline thinking and that in no way did Pauline thinking morph into the story of the Gospels. But of course there is interdependence among the first three Gospels. Matthew appears to be using at least three sources, known generally as M,Q, and the Gospel of Mark, and he has the occasional Aramaic quote. (Just as Shakespeare's Julius Caesar retains the Latin line "Et tu, Brute?", so the Greek Gospels throw in a few lines in Aramaic here and there.) Generally, we can safely conclude Matthew is working from earlier traditions.

The historicist position ultimately boils down to the claim that there are several layers or strata to the Gospels, somewhat like layers of geologic rock or the many strands of DNA in human ancestry and the claim to be able to distinguish what is agenda-driven with what is historical by a set of criterion known as the criterion of dissimilarity, criterion of embarrassment, and various others. The theology of the Gospel writers can of course affect selection of material as well as direct composition.

I believe it is Matthew who makes overuse of Old Testament passages (in wildly unconvincing ways) not Mark. Or are you referring to the ways that Gospel writers draw parallels between their stories and Old Testament stories? I am inclined to agree with Ehrman that the tendency of Gospel writers to shape or mold their stories along certain (preset) patterns does not greatly affect the question of Jesus' historicity one way or the other. Ehrman draws here the analogy with someone who depicts Richard Nixon as a Shakespearean tragic hero. They may be very inclined to push Nixon into that mold, but it has little bearing on whether one was historical or not.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:03, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Re: Paul's respect for the disciples - Its not that he actively believes the disciples never knew Jesus, or at least he doesn't communicate that to us. Rather, any connection with an historical Jesus cannot be why he respects them. He respects them because they too have received revelation, because to him that is the superior form of truth. So its not relevant to Paul if they knew an historical Jesus or not, just like its not relevant to him whether or not Jesus was historical. Paul is explicitly advocating anti-naturalism, so naturalist evidence is unimportant. What we can conclude from Galatians specifically is two-fold: (1) That revelation is the only legitimate avenue to truth for the early Christians. (2) That the existence of an actual person named Jesus is irrelevant not only to Paul but also to the churches with whom he corresponds (and certainly the 'Galatians' in particular). 1 implies that any early oral tradition is unlikely to be based in an historical context at all. 2 implies that early christians wouldn't have bothered to seek confirmation of Jesus as historical fact. Paul is our earliest evidence for the beliefs of early Christians, and while his specific *doctrine* may be regarded as irrelevant to the source material of the gospels, the way Paul treats evidence (and by extension the way the churches he wrote to treat evidence) is extremely important.

Re: Other things Paul claims - I'm rereading the authentic Pauline Epistles at the moment, so I'll return to some of these, but as far as the risen Christ 'appearing' to Peter, I see no reason to believe he means in reality. The risen Christ may well have appeared to Peter in revelation. Given Paul's stated epistemology in Galatians, I find this the likely claim. (FWIW, I consider there to be 7 authentic Pauline epistles as per modern scholarship, so the claims of the other supposed letters from Paul aren't particularly of interest in determining Paul's beliefs).

I'll happily concede the existing gospels don't seem particularly Pauline. However, its the *culture* of early Christians and their treatment of evidence that Paul represents which is important. That culture is what creates doubts.

Q and M are just hypotheses. Q, at least, is in dispute (Goodacre most notably, but also others). Streeter's L and M have no real basis. The material may well have been made up by 'Matthew' and 'Luke' to fill in or expand the narrative. There's no reason to believe in a lost source for unique material. (And indeed, there's reason to think that writers or oral traditions may have just made stuff up to add more detail - its a well-attested phenomenon in oral storytelling). To presuppose 'L' and 'M' as sources requires you to assume that nothing was 'made up' at any point and everything in the gospel can be traced back to a real Jesus - a great example of Begging the Question.

Even if Q is real, its not evidence for a real person. The reconstructed Q is a list of sayings. While these may have been said by one real person, they may equally well have been said by several real people, or have been 'revealed in revelation' to one or several real people (who then said them). Misattributed quotation is a serious problem, even in the 20th century! (for example: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turtles_all_the_way_down]Turtles all the way down[/url])

Re: your analogy to geologic strata or DNA - there's a profound difference between a written ideological document and the natural phenomena you wish to compare it to. I'd be happy to deconstruct this in detail if necessary, but I don't think the analogy holds at all. As to the criteria themselves:

Dissimilarity - already exposed as epistemologically bankrupt

Embarassment - I think they're trying to use something similar to a 'statement against interest' in a court of law. The problem is that in a court of law it can be used as evidence specifically because you can strictly define what is against interest in a court setting. Determining that for people who lived 2000 years ago, whose theological situation was not the church's current one, and whose ultimate motivations can only be guessed at is logically impossible. And even the court usage breaks down when the actual interests of the accused are different than supposed. (A person who *wants* to be convicted - whether they actually did it or not - is not making statements against interest when he incriminates himself.) At least with living people we can hope to elucidate their interests by continuing to talk with them. The dead have left us only what testimony we have and no more.

Nixon as shakespearean character: The problem is that if the *only* evidence for Nixon was as a character cast in a Shakespearean role, i think we would be rather inclined to doubt his existence. We don't tend to believe that Hamlet was real. No one would suppose Luke Skywalker or Frodo Baggins or Huck Finn was anything but fiction. And ultimately that's our problem - the only evidence we have for Jesus is an archetypal myth. Whether or not that gives us reason to *doubt* his existence is debatable (i would certainly claim that *only* being the subject of a clear work of fiction is reason to doubt a real existence behind it), but it certainly can never give us reason to *believe* his existence.

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm entirely unconvinced that Paul has the epistemology you describe. He seems to think that his revelation would trump the experience of the disciples (who are often portrayed in Mark's Gospel as misunderstanding Jesus) or even the disciple's oral tradition, but while he is wildly supernaturalist, I can't follow your claim that he doesn't care at all about Jesus as a historical person. Paul is prepared to believe that the disciples either misunderstand or misquote Jesus, but he certainly thinks the disciples knew Jesus, and seems to respect that they as such represent the beginning of a lineage of some kind (and are also apostles).

What Paul believes is that he too had a direct (supernatural) experience of Jesus and as such a direct commission which makes him every bit as much an apostle as the other fellows. And he sees Peter (whom he acknowledges as an apostle) as backsliding into Jewish practice under pressure from James.

I'm well aware there are only 7 authentic Pauline epistles. Re relationship to Matthew I am only interested in two considered authentic, Romans and Galatians. Matthew's Gospel gives many indications of coming out of the Jewish-Christian party that Paul opposes in spite of Matthew's opposition to the Pharisees. Matthew's Jesus appeals to the spirit of the Law rather than the letter of the Law sometimes in rather strict and severe ways that are in serious tension with Paul's theology.

We don't believe that Hamlet was real because we have a good reason to believe the creator of Hamlet created him as fiction (probably true of the Old Testament book of Jonah and Job as well). But with other legendary figures (as I have mentioned), historians maintain a strict agnosticism.

I am not really prepped to reply to your disbelief in the methodology criteria of dissimilarity and embarrassment. But I will note that we can establish that various New Testament writers fall into various theological groups with different theologies (John and Paul have similar but somewhat different theologies neither of which is the theology of the first two Gospels), we can say something about what those theologies were, and thus make some educated guesses as to what parts of their writings don't quite fit in with their own thinking. It's the job of cultural anthropology & other social sciences to see the world through an entirely different culture's eyes. I don't follow that a 2000-year gap means we just throw in the towel trying to figure out the motives of ancient writers.

PS The reason I asked if you were David Fitzgerald is that I know him personally and have corresponded with him personally, and I was slightly amused by the thought be might be again communicating anonymously, ever so slightly like the writers of the anonymous love letters who hate each other in daily life in "You got mail" (into really a good analogy, but it's what popped into my head.) --WickerGuy (talk) 23:49, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Regarding Paul: Doherty probably covers Paul better than I ever could. While his book is always an option, http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/CritiquesRefut1.htm spends a lot of time dealing with the Pauline epistles while he's dealing with Goguel.

I'm not convinced you have to reconstruct Paul's mythology to see that his epistemology is solely revalatory - that Doherty does more than he needs to do in order to destroy a belief that Paul had any knowledge of an historical Jesus. But he thoroughly demonstrates in the linked article that there is not a single reference (in *any* of the epistles apparently) to an historical Jesus.

Also from the link, Doherty's description of the Ascension of Isaiah (which I am not familiar with) is very interesting.

Regarding the argument from embarassment - while we can reconstruct *general* goals of the writers of the gospels from how they wrote their texts, its not clear that we can do so *specifically* enough to understand what kinds of admissions would be embarassing. And even if we could be absolutely certain that an admission was embarassing, that would only prove that claim came from a tradition - it would not vouch for the historical accuracy of that tradition. And it while it may be embarassing to "Matthew" or "Luke", it might not have been embarassing in the original context of its tradition. So not only do we have to believe something was embarassing for the writer of the gospel, but that it was embarassing for his source, and his source's source, all the way back to an historical Jesus at least 2 generations earlier (and possibly dozens or even hundreds of person-transmissions), in an era of rapidly changing Christology.

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 05:49, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The "criterion of embarrassment" is an embarrassment. It is not used anywhere outside Biblical studies. It is part of the ancestry of Biblical history in apologetics - it was invented by Will Durant in the 1920s 1940s and seized upon for historical apologetics. It leads to trivially stupid results elsewhere - the ancients told many stories with horrible and embarrassing things happening to obviously fictional gods. Claiming that it works on the gospels despite its ludicrous and obvious failures elsewhere is the fallacy of special pleading - David Gerard (talk) 10:07, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I believe the issue is embarrassment to the writer's theology/themes, not embarrassment to the subject of the writing, and Will Durant was a thorough non-believer in the Christian religion, but a general secular historian, very much in rebellion against his Catholic upbringing. He first proposes it in Christ and Caesar, although it certainly has been embraced by Biblical apologetics.

It is in fact used outside Biblical studies!!

From Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, page 6.

"To accept Josephus' often tendentious evaluation of the motives and characters of the Jews and Romans whose actions constitute his narrative would be rash, but to accept the details of his narrative, particularly when they contradict his own explanations of events, and so survive in the narrative only because they happened, is reasonable."

From Christopher Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian, page 74-77.

"It is surely impossible to believe that [Apollodorus] has himself made up his decree: if he had, he would have made a better job of it, and there would not have been all those mismatches...."

Everyone agrees it should be used with caution and might give misleading results. A fairly strong and intelligent criticism of the criterion of embarrassment (at least as it has been applied to the New Testament) has been given by Rabbi Michael Cook in his (somewhat over-polemical) book Modern Jews Engage the New Testament.--WickerGuy (talk) 13:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

I might point out that neither of those are 'embarassing' to their writers in the sense the NT Historicists want to use it. Your examples might allege *incompetence*, but that's not the same as *embarassment*. My impression has been that NT Historicists want to say things like 'John baptizing Christ would be embarassing for Christianity'. There's no incompetence in the narrative there at all. And the assumption that its embarassing for Christianity assumes facts about christian theology which patently aren't true today nor in the 2nd century AD. Humility isn't exactly embarassing for Christianity. Even the text doesn't support it being embarassing: the earliest Gospel, Mark, has Jesus's holy nature revealed to him only after his baptism.

Whether the examples you've portrayed are valid conclusions or not is debatable. On the one hand, if someone gives some data that don't agree with his conclusions, you might be inclined to think he is being honest with his data. (Of course, a clever fabricator could understand this and endeavor to occasionally include such information solely to mislead, but that is admittedly less likely). OTOH, people are for the most part really awful at drawing good conclusions from data (There's a reason science uses statistics to evaluate data - people fail horribly at data analysis without it), so the writer may not have realized that his interpretation didn't follow from the data he provided. And while that doesn't indict the data, it means its not a reason to trust those claims either.

Specifically in the case of Apollodorus, I think the Christopher Pelling is far too confident in people having good sense. People hold incoherent beliefs all the time. And frequently persist on believing incoherent things even when that incoherence is explained to them. Pelling has to assume that logic is a fundamental and central value of Apollodorus to even start his argument. (In our more rational age this isn't true for most people, and mystical thinking was even more prevalent in antiquity. Asserting contradictory truths was often considered wisdom! Why then should we suppose that contradiction would be abhorred or *even noticed* elsewhere?) I confess I'm not specifically familiar with Apollodorus, but the nature of Pelling's objection sounds not only like an assumption that someone is thinking like a modern, but that they're thinking like a well-educated and logic-conscious modern. Maybe it is so egregiously bad that a 5 year old can spot the problems, has he consulted a 5 year old?

Regardless, even incoherence isn't an argument against religious writers. Mystics believe contradictory things all the time. Faith removes all obstacles.

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 20:18, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Surely we're all aware that Durant had a doctorate in philosophy rather than history and that The Story of Civilization was popular history, right? 22:12, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Durant also was a newspaper reporter for an extended period of time, a profession that often morphs into doing history. He got the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction in 1968 for Rousseau and Revolution. His work was respected by George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell among others.--WickerGuy (talk) 22:29, 24 April 2012 (UTC)