Talk:Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus Christ/Archive9

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Comment on Doherty

Doherty, is IMO the sort of mythicist that makes them seem like conspiracy theorists. Paul clearly claims to know the disciple Peter who in turn is believed by Paul to have known a historical Jesus. Now Paul thinks that he understands Jesus far better than anyone who knew a mere earthly Jesus. "yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more." (2 Cor 5:13) and re your point, Paul says "I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me" (Galatians 1:16) but this is shortly followed by his account of seeing Jesus' brother James (most historians regard this as a literal brother, not some sort of monastic metaphor, though Doherty disagrees), and he later in the same epistle speaks of Jesus being "born of a woman...under the law". Finally, in Thesselonians Paul talks about the Judeans who both killed Jesus and who persecuted him, which I think if fairly definitive!!!--WickerGuy (talk) 14:04, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

You're totally failing to actually engage Doherty here by ignoring some important things

(1)Doherty is not claiming a conspiracy, rather he's pointing to the historicists belief in an historical Jesus forcing them to interpret passages in particular ways when those interpretations aren't certain or even likely. Basically, all the historical 'evidence' in the epistles isn't really evidence, only believing in Christ's historicity already would lead you to conclude it was. That's not an accusation of conspiracy, its an accusation of fallacious thinking.

(2) Incarnation in the 'realm of flesh' doesn't mean on earth. The realm of Archons - Paul's Rulers of the Age (ton archonton tou aionos toutou) - is the 'realm of flesh', and early christian writers agree that this is a spiritual and not physical dimension (see, eg, Origen). Doherty explains at some length here (with citations): http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp03.htm, including the widespread belief in similar ideas in the 1st century.

(3) Historicists see 'Brother of the Lord' as actual filial relationship because its the *only thing they've got* in the Pauline epistles. It doesn't have to be a filial relationship. Indeed, every other time Paul uses the word brother its clearly used in an episcopal sense. Nor would you expect him to use the word "Lord" for a flesh-and-blood relationship. This is at best non-evidence for the historicist, as both theories explain it equally well. (Indeed, it doesn't particularly help the historicists, since Mark has no 'James the brother of Jesus' despite having 2 James among the Apostles, and assigns neither of them a father named Joseph. Mark clearly didn't believe either was the filial brother of Jesus.) If historicists were being honest they'd admit that it could be interpreted either way rather than making a strained case for it being a filial claim.

(4) Yet strangely does not say "Born of Mary". "Born of Woman" is a scriptural expression, present in the old testament. Even some historicists have been willing to admit that this is likely *metaphor* rather than *historical* claim. The fact that its *under the law* is necessary for Paul's spiritual claims, it applies at least as well to a spiritual incarnation in the realm of flesh.

(5) The end of Thessalonians 2 (13-16) helps not at all, since its widely agreed even by the mainstream scholarly community to be interpolation because it completely contradicts Paul's message elsewhere. Furthermore, it references events that only happen *after Paul dies* as if they had already happened. No honest historicist could possibly take the passage as evidence.

(6) It is inconceivable that a man whose savior was only recently crucified with the help of the Roman government of Judaea could possibly write Romans 13:1-7. "For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." (quoting Rom 13:3-4, NIV). Unless you wish to make crazy suppositions like *being crucified* is a *commendation* from the authorities, Paul can't possibly believe in the historical Jesus from the gospels, and I think that supposition necessarily forces you to conclude some flavor of gnosticism is right (at which point the synoptic gospels are still wrong). And yet the fact that Christ died and was resurrected is the only important feature of his Christ, so this is the detail of Christ's life he should be most familiar if there really was an historical Jesus.

(7) In all his argument against particular practices, not once does Paul quote Jesus as an authority. He resorts to the old testament for textual support. Not once does he point to an event from Jesus's life - he points to 'the prophets' as known through the OT. Where is his historical Jesus who should be the ultimate reference in deciding doctrine?

--69.209.53.13 (talk) 18:08, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

It's quite true that assuming Paul thought James was the bio-bro of the J-man gives historicists something to hang their hat on and as such may seem like "confirmation bias", but the belief that James was the literal brother of Jesus was prevalent in early Christianity. Josephus (outside of the controverted passage) speaks of James as the bio-bro of Jesus. So does early Christian chronicler Hegesippus. So the meme started long before the historicity of Christ became a subject of controversy.

You're right. The provenance of the Thessalonians passage is definitely disputed. On the one hand, it is not missing from any early manuscripts (as is the case with controverted passages in Mark and John). On the other hand, it has theological problems. I don't have a strong opinion on it either way.

However, Paul not only speaks of Jesus being "born of a woman" but preaching to the Jews "a servant of the circumcised" or "minister of the circumcision" depending on your translation of Romans 15:8 and Jesus as "descended from David according to the flesh" (Romans 1:3-4) Paul also gives a brief account of Jesus' words at the Last Supper and speaks of the risen Jesus appearing to first Peter and then to "the twelve" (both in 1 Corinthians). He also speaks of Jesus being crucified on a tree (Gal.3:13) and buried (I Cor. 15:4)

If Paul really thought Jesus' death was in a spirit-realm that was not on earth, it would be utterly unique point of view in Christian writings. Not even the heavily Platonist Epistle to the Hebrews, nor the epistles attributed to John, nor any extra-biblical writings assume this.

The question of why Paul knows relatively little about the life of Jesus also has a lot of controversy surrounding it. Was he out of touch with oral traditions circulating in Jerusalem? Did he assume his hearers already knew this stuff? Paul does refer to Jesus' teaching on divorce in 1 Corinthians echoing Mark, but beyond this and a passing reference to how missionaries earn their living and the above-mentioned account of the last Supper (1 Corinthians 11), Paul makes fairly minimal usage of the life of Jesus, although to say "not once" as you did is a slight exaggeration.

Commenting on Doherty, George Wells wrote "Doherty tells that he was launched on the path of skepticism by my own critical work, but finds that my skepticism does not go far enough. This is certainly a novel criticism for me to face." Some have heavily criticized Doherty (Joseph Hoffman and Bart Ehrman), others think he has made a clever case but are not fully convinced (Hector Avalos) and others think he's just peachy brilliant (Frank Zindler and Robert Price). But I find Earl Doherty's interpretation of the Incarnation (what Richard Carrier has labeled the "sublunar incarnation" utterly unconvincing.

Your point about Romans is a good one. At the time Paul wrote, Christians were being very careful with their image among Roman authorities.

I don't think Doherty is postulating a conspiracy, only that he has some qualities of a conspiracy theorist.--WickerGuy (talk) 22:22, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

The _other_ Josephine acknowledgement is also heavily disputed and quite likely an interpolation. No one before the 4th century was aware of any comment in Josephus which referred to Christ, and Origen otherwise quotes from him extensively.

Its not about when the historicity of Christ became an issue, its about who is writing early enough to know anything. Which is basically Paul and maybe some of the other Epistles. That's it. Anyone writing in the 2nd century or later is not really a trustworthy source. (And especially anyone writing post-gospels).

And Hegesippus doesn't actually say anything to resolve the matter, afaict, he uses the same "Brother of the Lord" language, which is exactly what you'd expect if it was a title or an epithet rather than a filial relation. (The fact that Eusebius is our only source for Hegesippus isn't encouraging regarding the accuracy of anything that the document might say anyway, as Eusebius was notoriously in favor of falsifying history for political/theological ends. Eusebius is also the first person to quote Josephus as saying anything about Christ and may have written in the interpolation himself.)

Basically, we need to *test* the Gospel account against other writings, which means we can't assume the Gospel at all. We need to forget it exists entirely, interpret Paul in its absence, and then see how well the understanding we gain from Paul corresponds to the Gospels. If we interpret Paul in light of the gospels, its no longer independent and can confirm nothing - we are begging the question.

Regarding Thessalonians: The consensus is so strongly in favor of ejecting those passages as interpolation that I can find no reference to a critical scholar who defends them, and wikipedia doesn't even list an argument in favor of their authenticity although it lists many against, nor is one even mentioned on the talk page! Which isn't to say there isn't one somewhere, but its apparently so unnotable that not even Christian apologists have been able to reference one. (Say what you will about Wikipedia, but conservative religious views, if they have anything resembling a notable argument, tend to make themselves heard on at least the talk page). My general approach to interpolations when they have sufficient weight of evidence to make them unlikely to be original is to ignore them.

A purely spiritual Christ is hardly unique. Docetism is in this direction. Marcion's Christ was 'revealed as a man, though not a man', and he was avidly Pauline (as he interpreted Paul). Much gnosticism either duplicates Paul's spiritual 'Realm of Flesh' concept or brings all of it to earth proper (including Paul's obviously spiritual Archons) - although in the latter case its arguable those accounts are allegorical rather than literal. And keep in mind that the historicist church won, and did not preserve much material that spoke against them. Frequently they burned it. Not having as many examples as we might like is a case of that material being actively destroyed.

Even if you could somehow prove that Paul's theology is unique relative to the 2nd century and later Christianity is irrelevant. Doherty demonstrates that thinking *much like Paul's apparent theology* was commonplace in the 1st century among jews and gentiles, and based on Platonic thought. Paul merely demonstrates its presence in christianity. I will gladly agree that by the mid 2nd century, by the time the gospels were written and collected, Christianity had changed substantially. And certainly by the time the canon was established that has been handed down to us they'd stamped out most opposition to their interpretation. But that isn't evidence at all for what Christianity was doing in the 1st century. And Christianity's claims in the 1st century are the only ones that matter for an historical Jesus unless we can prove the 2nd century claims are based directly on the 1st century claims. Ie, the Gospels are useless unless we can show they are verifying Paul.

Other people's 'impressions' of Doherty are meaningless. Either they can answer his arguments or they can't. Only the arguments matter. The people are ultimately irrelevant except for the quality of the argument they can make. Ehrman's latest work, at least, has not impressed. And Hoffman's recent multi-page ad hominem rant about Carrier has also not impressed. (I'm looking for his response to Doherty, but if his blogged anti-Carrier diatribe is anything to go by, it'll consist mostly of personal attacks and have very little of substance). Why are the established academics the ones coming out of this looking like children?

I will say that I find Doherty's 'sublunar incarnation' quite persuasive given my knowledge and interest in mythology. Its not a surprisingly unique mythology, the only surprising thing is he found the evidence for it in orthodox Christian documents, no less from Paul's own mouth. Anyone familiar with Gnosticism, Kabbala, and mystery traditions will find it sounds eerily familiar.

This is getting really long again, I'll make responses to particular Pauline passages in a second edit.

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 05:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Jesus, kid. Can we get paragraph breaks or something? 05:53, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Would you like me to bullet each paragraph? I do separately indent each paragraph, so at least in the 'edit' screen it should be easy to read if you find it difficult otherwise. =P --69.209.77.48 (talk) 10:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

This is where I note that I am frequently making my own arguments rather than Doherty's, both below and previously. Let us say that I am arguing *in the spirit* of Doherty's thesis, rather than specifically defending his exact views or his specific articulations. I'm only making a case his thesis is plausible.

It should probably also be noted that unlike Doherty, I am not a reader of ancient greek at all, much less a fluent reader, so I can't even begin to articulate the importance of particular greek vocabulary Doherty references. That language is ultimately important, since its the actual words of the writers and the means to their meaning. But I will try to deal with such text as I can access and interpret.

Rom 15:8: My NIV says "For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews [circumcision] on behalf of God's truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs." That doesn't indicate he preached at all. Consider it in the context of the mythical thesis: Jesus incarnation and death in the 'sublunar' "realm of flesh" is the fulfillment of those promises. That is the 'service' he provides. Even if we don't accept the mythical thesis, the sentence says nothing about preaching, nor can it. As a preacher, the proposed HJ would be a servant of _God_, not the Jews. And preaching itself would not fulfill the promises to the patriarchs. So whatever this is about, its not about preaching, its about the fulfillment of God's promise to Israel. At best, we can conclude nothing substantive from this passage about Jesus, historical or not.

Rom 1:3-4: As the NIV has it, "...who as to his human nature was a descendant of David..." I think we are desperately in need of the actual greek here, as there's an abundance of alternate translations, not all of which seem to have the same meaning. They all seem to derive the first part from "according to the flesh", specifically using the word σάρξ, sarx, which has a variety of meanings in Biblical writings. (see http://bible.cc/romans/1-3.htm for translations, definitions, and analysis). Insightfully the link notes: "the expression "according to the flesh" is applied to no other one in the New Testament but to Jesus Christ. Though the word "flesh" often occurs, and is often used to denote man, yet the special expression, "according to the flesh" occurs in no other connection." (And continues that analysis in the following paragraph, which is well worth reading). At the very least, its hard to interpret this as saying that his descent from David is meant at all typically since it warrants a unique expression that is applied only to Jesus, and thus a case for a non-Biological meaning cannot be dismissed.

I might note that this case is indicative of a 'technical' terminology used by Paul, which has specific meaning to the initiated but fails to convey meaning or fails to convey the intended meaning to us because that terminology has been abandoned and then lost. Which makes relying on solely a common meaning of a given passage in Paul's writings hazardous at best, and utter folly at worst. We must endeavor to recreate Paul's technical language to understand him.

1 Cor 15:3-8, regarding 'buried': I'm going to let Doherty speak for himself here: http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp06.htm. In particular, 'appearing to' is actually the word ophthe, which, as Doherty notes: "In a study of the meaning of ophthe here, the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (vol. V, p. 358) points out that in this type of context the word is a technical term for being “in the presence of revelation as such, without reference to the nature of its perception.” In other words, the “seeing” may not refer to actual sensory or mental perception. Rather, it may simply be “an encounter with the risen Lord who reveals himself...they experienced his presence.”"

1 Cor 11:23-29, The Lord's Supper (not 'The Last Supper'), Doherty also deals with it in the link above, and as much of his discussion involves intricacies of the actual greek involved, i leave it to him. Note particularly that translators typically *bias* the reading by translating 'delivered up' as 'arrested' or 'betrayed', where this sense isn't needed or necessarily implied. You have to read Paul without letting your preconceptions from the Gospels color his narrative, otherwise you beg the question. Ultimately Doherty's argument here is that Paul's claim is best read as a personal vision based on the language he uses to communicate it, and that the ritual itself is reminiscent of nothing in Jewish thought or practice, but is common in greco-roman mystery cults of the era, and uses the same terminology as those mystery cults.

Gal. 3:13's reference to being hung on a tree is actually a direct quote from Deuteronomy. However, Paul does believe Christ was crucified, he even tells us by who in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8: "And yet I do speak of a wisdom for those who are mature, not a wisdom of this passing age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away. I speak of God's secret wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and predestined by God for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." So Paul's Christ *is* crucified by the "Rulers of the Age", ton archonton tou aionos toutou, whom I've already noted (and Doherty notes) should be understood as spiritual 'demons', and were understood as such by early writers like Origen. The crucifixion to Paul is a spiritual event that he has witnessed by revelation.

Paul teaches _from his own mouth_ on divorce and missionaries earning their living in 1 Corinthians. He does not refer to or echo Mark, 'Mark' comes after Paul, so Paul can't possibly refer to or echo him. Rather, Mark must be referring to Paul, which indicts the claim that these teachings come from Jesus. Specifically on missionaries earning their living, he argues from OT quotes and practices. He attributes no source to his teachings on marriage and divorce (and given he makes clear what he knows from revelation, we would best assume these are his own).

I might finally note that Gerd Ludemann also concludes, separately from Doherty, that there is no evidence for an historical Jesus in Paul's writings. (Ludemann is apparently still an historicist, I am unsure on what supposed evidence. I have also not read the work, only a review). See Ludemann, Gerd. 2010. Paul as a Witness to the Historical Jesus. in Sources of the Jesus Tradition. http://www.librarything.com/work/book/72053263

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 10:00, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Just some notes

I would guess that Ludemann is a historicist due to belief (widely held) that the Gospels come out of a tradition entirely independent of Paul rather than being a morphing of Paul's material. I've read one book and a few articles by Ludemann mostly on the major contradictions in the accounts of the resurrection. He wrote two books on the resurrection. I read the more technical (and earlier) of the two.

Pearson is the major scholar who first proposed the the Thessalonian passage is an interpolation. Scholars who defend 1 Corinthians 2:13-16 include J Christiaan (sic) Beker and Karl Donfried, and...Bart Ehrman. The argument largely runs on dealing with it in its apocalyptic context. Richard Horsley writes on p. 58 of his book Paul and the Roman Imperial Order "The interpretation of this passage is mired in debate over whether or not it is an interpolation or an original part of the letter...manuscript evidence supports the originality of the passage". It's authenticity is also defended in The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text by Charles A. Wanamaker and Paul, One of the Prophets?: A Contribution to the Apostle's Self-Understanding by Karl Olav Sandnes (perhaps such an arch-conservative I shouldn't list him here) and in The Jerusalem Temple and Early Christian Identity by Timothy Wardle.

For now, I am not interested in who has the better argument. I am only trying to establish that its provenance is controversial and disputed. There is no unanimous consensus that it is an interpolation, as there is with the conclusion of Mark's Gospel or the story of the woman in adultery in John's Gospel (both missing from multiple early manuscripts and both of which have obvious linguistic evidence for being interpolations- neither is true of the Thesselonians passage.) Ehrman notes that it is highly disputed himself and regardless of the merits of Ehrman's arguments on historicity, I have no reason to disbelieve his portrait of the current scope/consensus of Biblical scholars.

It is possibly that Earl Doherty may be the Copernicus of Biblical Studies shifting our perspective from our currently "Ptolemaic" approach to the New Testament. But I am not sure how qualified either of us are to evaluate the details of the argument. All non-fundamentalists agree that Christian tradition evolved over time, and met some kind of deep need among the peasantry of the day important enough that it spread rapidly across the Roman Empire albeit in small numbers. But whether or not a historical person or a series of visions was the "Big Bang" behind it all is unknowable.

Your arguments (and Doherty's) about the various specific passages require a significant "Gestalt switch" [1] [2] in how Christian texts have been read.

A major criticism of Doherty is that while he has the cosmology correct of a sublunar realm of warring spirits (this I already knew of), many hold that realm goes all the way to the surface of the earth, and he does not convincingly show that the sublunar realm is multi-layered into an aerial part below the moon but also above the (say) clouds where Doherty believes Paul believed the original Jesus story took place. In spite of my frequent rereadings of Homer and occasional reading of Plutarch, I am not in a position to evaluate this argument in detail. But I will note that Doherty is actually the first mythicist to propose this. George Wells did not. Either way, Doherty's case stands or falls with the assertion (as Wikipedia puts it) that "Paul and other writers of the earliest existing proto-Christian Gnostic documents did not believe in Jesus as a person who incarnated on Earth in an historical setting. Rather, they believed in Jesus as a heavenly being who suffered his sacrificial death in the lower spheres of heaven in the hands of the demon spirits". No further comment at this time.--WickerGuy (talk) 01:00, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I suppose ultimately the point I'm arguing is that Doherty's thesis is cogent and cohesive, and not just to be dismissed without being given serious consideration and refutation in detail, or otherwise acknowledging it at a legitimate alternative hypothesis. Neither Ehrman nor Hoffman seem willing to do so.

Is it superior to the historical Jesus arguments? The failure of Ehrman to make a strong case for an historical Jesus because he does not take the mythicists seriously does not help with that evaluation. Doherty thoroughly rebuts the historicist answers to mythicists through Van Voorst on his website. I'll have to track down some of those myself to be sure, but it really feels like the historical jesus conclusion, as presented by those authors, is really lacking any substantive evidence. Which isn't to say there doesn't exist a good argument for an historical Jesus, but I'm certainly not aware of one. So as I'm not a specialist in the field, I'm waiting for someone to take the mythicists seriously and actually write a strong rebuttal.

I don't think it actually matters to Doherty's thesis whether or not his proposed mythology happens in a 'sublunar realm' or a mythical earth. He's said elsewhere (sorry, I don't have the link to hand, it was buried in a mailing list, i can try to dig it up if needed) that he's sticking with his spiritual "Realm of Flesh" because it fits the data and surrounding mythology better. Even if it is placed 'on earth', it doesn't make it the physical historical earth nor does it require a real human at the center of it. So even placing it 'on earth' doesn't necessarily make it 'in history'. (Plenty of Greco-Roman myths, not to mention myths elsewhere, are placed 'on earth' without any modern scholar believing they actually happened).

The mythicist case does have positive evidence. Our earliest witness of Christianity, Paul, seems primarily or even solely focused on a spiritual being, and Paul's apparently Christology fits into the known belief patterns of Jews and Greeks in the 1st century. OTOH mainstream critical scholarship's reconstructions of an historical Jesus mostly lack positive evidence - all the useful biographical data from the gospels is pretty much ejected wholesale by Ehrman, for example. I will gladly grant there were Yeshuas in Palestine in the first century who were rabbis, teachers, apocalyptics, or would-be prophets, and grant that just by probability (Yeshua is not an uncommon Jewish name for the era, there were many Jews engaged in the relevant activities). A strong case for an historical Jesus has to be able to say 'we have enough biographical evidence that it would be likely to point to one and only one Yeshua'. The existence of an historical Jesus then explains *that* evidence, and without it the would-be historical Jesus explains nothing and is irrelevant and unsupportable. The claim 'there was an historical Jesus, but we don't really know anything about him' is not a useful model.

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The arguments for the historical Jesus are of moderate so-so strength and strike me as a somewhat less precise version of physicists arguments for dark matter which has never been directly observed, and some physicists think we can just change our model of gravity and dispense with dark matter entirely. Of course, physicists postulated neutrinos and black holes prior to actually finding them, but I don't think any stronger evidence for Jesus is likely to be found. However, the claim that "there was an historical Jesus, but we don't really know anything about him" has been around for a century beginning with Albert Schweitzer, and has satisfied a lot of folks. The arguments for Jesus ultimately boil down to a belief it is a simpler explanation for the origin of Christianity and how historians view the experiences of the early disciples, though the problem remains of the extraordinary diversity of these experiences. (Why is John's Gospel so radically different from Mark's, etc?) For Ehrman, two key issues that he develops in Chapter 5 are a) the fact that Paul testifies to knowing people who knew Jesus (Ehrman explains in detail why he thinks Doherty is wrong on this) and b) the improbability of Palestinian Jews developing out of whole cloth the notion of a crucified suffering Messiah. This is I suppose an argument from cultural anthropology. Doherty's theories may be coherent but seem to have a lot of suppositions behind them.

I don't really follow what you are saying about the distinction between "'sublunar realm' or a mythical earth" or the "surrounding mythology".

Ehrman doesn't analyze mythicists in a lot of detail because he considers several of their starting premises to be false, but he does in fact spend about 90 pages (1/4th) of his 360 page book specifically rebutting mythicist arguements, so it's not as if he is being casually dismissive though he does (over)play the credentials game.

When Paul gives his teaching on divorce, he claims it comes from Jesus, although it is unclear whether he got it from personal revelation or oral tradition, though of course he doesn't refer to Mark which was written much later. But it is possible he is getting it from the same oral tradition that Mark used. I said he "echoed" Mark, not that he cited Mark. Sorry if I was unclear. The same thing is the case for how missionaries earn their living.

Paul testifies to knowing people who *Ehrman* claims knew an historical Jesus. (1) On the one hand, Paul never proveably claims they knew an historical Jesus. (2) On the other hand, Paul frequently claims about knowing things by revelation alone. Paul's very theory of knowledge is suspect as an historical basis for anything. In the best case for Ehrman, he's assuming far more certainty than can possibly be claimed, which is not the mark of a serious scholar. (And even if we could be 100% certain that Paul thinks Peter really knew an earthly Jesus, Paul certainly never met him and may be misled by Peter, mistaken in interpreting Peter, or concluded this from something other than historical evidence - say revelation.)

Ehrman claims the Mythicist proposal is out of whole cloth, but there's a whole wealth of literature that asserts it isn't (which Doherty references). You'd be forced to conclude that the only relevant literature to 'contemporary thought' on the matter was Christian literature for Ehrman, which is nonsensical. I mean, the fact that the ritual of Paul's Lord's Supper is quite similar to contemporary mystery tradition ritual down to the *words used* to describe it is incredibly strong evidence for it not being invented 'out of whole cloth' even in the absence of an historical Jesus. It leads one to suspect Ehrman doesn't actually know anything about contemporary religious thought. (I hope that's not true, but even I know Ehrman is wrong here. Heck, anyone who has read Isaiah knows Ehrman is wrong here, which I would hope includes Ehrman).

Furthermore, Ehrman has elsewhere argued against the argument from silence. If we can't use silence against an historical Jesus, we can't use it against other putative traditions very similar to early Christianity (assuming we even know anything about what early Christianity looks like). Indeed, we'd have more reason to expect silence from alternative Jewish Messianic sects, given they didn't win and their writings would be less likely to be preserved or even actively destroyed. And that's even assuming Ehrman has proven that Christianity is nothing like anything else in contemporary Palestinian thought (Where he resorts to a No True Scotsman fallacy - and even that stringent 'scotsman' isn't really proven unique).

So Ehrman is equally if not more culpable of relying on supposition instead of fact. At least Doherty is trying to get into Paul's head by understanding his specific language and the theology Paul is advocating with that language. There's far less supposition than you think since he meticulously references not just his own understanding of greek, but mainstream scholarship's understanding of greek language in making his arguments.

Ah, I did find the passage where he ascribes part of his message on marriage to the Lord (the next paragraph he ascribes solely to himself, where I got confused before). Nevertheless, he doesn't ascribe this teaching to an earthly Jesus, he ascribes it to "the Lord". No evidence either way.

His defense of missionaries earning their living is his own argument, by his own admission: "This is my defense..." (1 Cor 9:3). And then he proceeds to argue by analogy to OT scripture. Only after making his case does he refer to a command of "the Lord", which is desultory and summary in nature.

Surely neither of those is evidence for an historical Jesus - Paul never met any such person and learned his Gospel from no man, so there's no way he can convey the teachings of an historical figure. (Unless he's lying, but if he's lied about that then he could be lying about anything or everything!) If Mark echoes Paul, then Mark had access to Paul's writings or a tradition based on Paul's writings, and that Mark ascribed these teachings to an earthly Jesus is evidence of putting words into the mouth of a literary figure. No other conclusion can possibly follow. Wherever the Gospels agree with Paul they must ultimately be based on Paul.

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 07:27, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

PS. Oh, 'surrounding mythology' means exactly what Ehrman would like you to believe doesn't exist: that there's a wealth of reasonably similar belief systems in-and-around Palestine and in-or-before the 1st century, and that some of these systems agree in surprising detail with Christian ritual, Christian themes, or specifics of Paul's and other writers' conceptions of Christ as evidenced in the Epistles and non-canonical Christian writings (like the Ascension of Isaiah).

Ehrman's whole argument for uniqueness denies his own conclusion anyway - if the mythical elements have nothing to do with an historical Christ, then they had to be made up. Having an historical figure to attach them to doesn't help at all with the mythological claims - that historical figure is irrelevant to them. So even if we grant Ehrman is right on uniqueness, and we grant that uniqueness prohibits invention, then it kills his own argument as surely as it kills the mythicists. Ehrman's historical Jesus *needs* a surrounding mythology to draw from.

On a separate issue, re your point "Why are the established academics the ones coming out of this looking like children?". Richard Carrier behaved quite petulantly towards both Joseph Hoffman and Bart Ehrman before they reciprocated. Indeed in his book, Ehrman is quite kind and charitable towards Richard Carrier, so the nastiness of Carrier's initial review of the book is really unbecoming. Carrier has also been nasty to other academics he crossed paths with. Carrier seems to me to be the Harlan Ellison of atheism, genuinely bright but horribly overly brash. So I don't accept the premise of your question.--WickerGuy (talk) 05:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The tone troll argument ("but you're so meeeeean!") is not an argument. I will note that, way up there, it was the one you started with - David Gerard (talk) 06:48, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

When I originally raised the issue of Carrier's behavior, I was very careful to note that Carrier's meanness had absolutely no bearing on whether his arguments were true or not!! (and for precisely that reason can NOT be describe as an ad hominem attack, if that's what you were referring to earlier. Ad hominem means trying to refute an argument on the basis of the character of the person making a claim!!) Discussions of civility abound on the Talk pages of Wikipedia, and there is no reason to exclude them here. I had a personal motive as a family member, who is a more professional academic than I, has been on the receiving end of one of Carrier's blasts, although much less publicly- it was on an online bulletin board generally only accessible to students and faculty of Columbia University's history department. I'm a bit wary about mentioning this stuff as Carrier and I have three friends in common, and Carrier and I have both been on the staff of the same humanist summer camp although in separate years- we have an employer in common (the employer also being a friend in common). On this new round, it was IP 69.209.77.48 who raised the issue of civility in general and he seemed to turn a blind eye to RC's incivility while complaining about the incivility of Ehrman and Joseph Hoffman. Hoffman (who has worked in two separate capacities for the humanist Center for Inquiry- one as editor of Free Inquiry) edited an anthology of essays to which Carrier made one contribution. Hoffman made some editorial changes (I don't know what exactly) to Carrier's essay, and Carrier has been dissing Hoffman and calling him ugly names since then. This, in particular, suggested my comparison to the bright but brash sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison. While Ellison's print publishing career is still in excellent shape, in spite of winning lots of Emmy's for TV writing, Ellison destroyed his Hollywood career by his brash nastiness towards every TV producer who dared alter a word of what he had written. Too bad, as Ellison's screenplay adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot was far superior to the lousy one that got produced. I would have far preferred to see Ellison's version.--WickerGuy (talk) 13:22, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

In my reading of Carrier's review, he is on point and goes after Ehrman for substantive reasons. Does he add some blunt rhetoric? Sure. I get the feeling he's flabbergasted. He might be 'nasty' in the sense of not pulling any punches, but he's not going after Ehrman as a person, he's going after Ehrman's arguments. (And if he slips up and throws an ad hominem in, its hardly a substantial portion of his review and likely has to do with whatever contributes to my sense that he's flabbergasted - but I didn't notice any from Carrier).

Hoffman, http://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/mythtic-pizza-and-cold-cocked-scholars/, is almost pure ad hominem. There is no substance here. He's not going after Carrier's arguments, he's going right after Carrier as a person. I don't even care what history there might be between the two of them, there's no excuse for a serious academic to do that. Even in the case where Carrier made a similar purely ad hominem diatribe against Hoffman. (Which I have no evidence of).

And while Ehrman might be 'kind' to Carrier, he's still *going after Carrier* rather than *Carrier's arguments* when he does things like hammer credentialism. Ad hominem is ad hominem, no matter how polite.

So when I say the established scholars are the ones coming off like children, I mean they're the ones who can't seem to do anything but attack the *people* on the other side.

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 07:27, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

See also post in reply to Gerard above your post here re history of Carrier and Hoffman.

Actually, one of the problems here is that Carrier detected a credentials attack by Ehrman when none was present!!!!! Ehrman 1) said in his book that Carrier was one of the most scholarly of the mythicists and indeed one of the most credentially qualified to make the mythicist case!!! Then 2) Ehrman mistakenly said that Carrier's degree was in classics. This was a mistake. Carrier's degree was in ancient history. 3) Carrier then mistakenly took this as an attack on his credentials an attempt to diminish and discredit him, when no such attack was intended. Cheezes phuquing Kreistte!!! Touchy, aren't we??

My impression is that Carrier attacked Ehrman's credentials (using the alleged errors as evidence) far more viciously than vice-versa, and needlessly so. I recommend Ehrman's more recent and much longer reply to Carrier here. [3]

I agree that Hoffman is heavy-handed, but I also think he has some legit points. In passing, I think it's over the top to compare mythicists to Holocaust-deniers and creationists (Ehrman in Huffington Post-aagh!! but thankfully not his book), but a more apropos analogy would be the (slightly more respectable) folks who are convinced that Shakespeare didn't write his plays. Some intelligent folks have bought into that idea (including famed psychoanalysis-founder Sigmund Freud and some prominent theatre people such as actor Derek Jacobi) but mainstream academia remains utterly unconvinced and the consensus of well over 98% of Elizabethan historians and scholars is that Shakespeare wrote the plays and that the arguments for other candidates are unconvincing. Hoffman is correct in noting that Carrier discards a lot of standard methodology and wants to establish some new methodology in a way that leave the establishment a bit perplexed. However, Hoffman may err in arguing Carrier is trying to steer/manipulate evidence towards a pre-conceived conclusion, as evidenced by Carrier's initial review of Doherty here [4].--WickerGuy (talk) 13:49, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The whole point is that the credentials - any credentials - don't matter at all in evaluating the arguments. That Ehrman even brings up credentials is, literally, ad hominem (at the person). Its besides the point. There is only the arguments. Those arguments are either good or bad. Talking about credentials is at best a distraction from actual issues, at worse an attempt to demonize opponents so he doesn't have to actually seriously consider their arguments.

The only time when 'ad hominem' is not a fallacy is when its used to indict evidence. Which is why witnesses in a trial may have their credibility attacked. Witnesses are not allowed to make argument, they are only allowed to provide evidence. But that's not the case here, neither Doherty nor Carrier witnessed early Christianity, they are not the source of evidence. They refer to evidence (like lawyers do) to construct argument. Their persons are wholly superfluous. The only thing that matters is the arguments they make, and arguments do not have credentials.

--69.209.59.178 (talk) 03:28, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Court rooms do in fact make allowance for what is called an "expert witness". As Wikipedia puts it, this is "is a witness, who by virtue of education, training, skill, or experience, is believed to have expertise and specialised knowledge in a particular subject beyond that of the average person, sufficient that others may officially and legally rely upon the witness's specialized (scientific, technical or other) opinion about an evidence or fact issue within the scope of his expertise, referred to as the expert opinion, as an assistance to the fact-finder.[1] Expert witnesses may also deliver expert evidence about facts from the domain of their expertise.[2] At times, their testimony may be rebutted with a learned treatise, sometimes to the detriment of their reputations." In intellectual property cases, expert witnesses are often called upon to determine if one piece of music is copied from another. DNA and fingerprint analysis are often testified to by expert witnesses, etc. etc.--WickerGuy (talk) 07:36, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

You have *entirely missed the point*. But this isn't a case of witnesses. The witnesses are the texts referenced. The credentials of the texts can be attacked. But the mythicists (and Ehrman himself) are in the role of lawyers, and cannot be attacked on their credentials. They are providing argument, and only the arguments matter. Ehrman is not indicting any evidence when he hammers their credentials, he's trying to say they have no right to make arguments on the matter, or even have their arguments considered, unless they have some arbitrary set of credentials. That's not how argument is evaluated. Its an entirely fallacious digression of Ehrman's and his reputation should suffer for engaging in such polemics.

I'm sorry, but why are you being so dense on this?

--69.209.59.178 (talk) 09:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

In one sense, you are entirely right. For example amateur scientists make valid contributions to scientific inquiry all the time. Thomas Edison and Micheal Faraday were uncredentialed amateurs who respectively developed the light bulb and discovered the basic rules of electro-magnetism. The credential card IMO is legitimate to play when someone has a very elaborate argument that nonetheless rests on some very basic misconceptions and disinformation. For example, pseudo-scientist Immanuel Velikovsky had an elabarate argument that Biblical miracles were caused by UFOs. At one point his explanation rests on a very basic confusion between carbohydrates and hydrocarbons as if they were two words for the same thing, when they are actually quite different. (My source is Isaac Asimov's essay on Velikovsy) At this point, in the interests of saving one's valuable personal time, one can conclude one need not pursue the argument further. This is not an airtight criterion. It's a question of choosing whom to debate and whom not to debate, as a matter of economy of time.

Ehrman does in fact think there are three well-credentialed mythicists (including Richard Carrier in Ehrman's book, though Carrier misconstued Ehrman as having attacked his credentials) and chooses to deal with their arguments in greater detail.

Unfortunately, while Ehrman makes a detailed (though brief) case that Acharya is so hopelessly lost in disinformation that one need not pursue her argument very far, he doesn't do quite as well with your guy Earl Doherty. He clearly believes Doherty has over-universalized to the entire ancient Near East a cosmology that was actually one of many options and (in Ehrman's view) unlikely to be the cosmology of Paul. But he is not as eloquent on Doherty. He states that Doherty has many many mistakes and misconceptions, he seems somewhat less forthcoming on specifics than he was with Acharya. If only because of Doherty's popularity, I wish Ehrman had gone into more detail. So indeed Ehrman may have overplayed the credential card with Doherty, but there are IMO appropriate times and places to employ it.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:17, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Note there's a serious difference between Isaac Asimov's treatment of Velikovsy (as you've presented it) and Ehrman's extended belaboring of credentials. He does deal with Velikovsy's argument and proves that an important premise is unsound. If that premise is key to the argument, then the argument falls. He hasn't indicted Velkovsy on the basis of credentials, but on the basis of facts.

Ehrman exposing premises in the arguments of Mythicists that are false is a valuable activity. (He should also demonstrate these premises are necessary for their arguments, and thus they cause the entire argument to become unsound - mistakes of fact don't necessarily demolish the argument if they're just *some* of a greater body of evidence in favor of something.)

But showing someone has made errors of logic or fact is a totally different activity than attacking their credentials. Perfectly credentialed people have made both (indeed, this is logically required even in NT studies - at most one historical jesus hypothesis can be true, so every false one has to have made at least one error of fact or logic). People with absolutely no credentials can valuably contribute to a field.

Ehrman himself makes mistakes of fact (for example, he does claim that we "have" the sources for the gospels, which is blatantly false, there are hypothetical reconstructions but they are not the sources themselves). I think we would also agree that Ehrman has the appropriate credentials.

So what does his digression about credentials really accomplish? He's poisoning the well against mythicists by claiming they have no right to make argument on the subject. That can be the only possible purpose.

There is nothing fallacious about attacking the evidence and logic of the mythicists. There is something deeply fallacious and *dishonest* about attacking the credentials of mythicists. Just because he does both in one book (with no comment on how well he accomplishes either) does not excuse the ad hominem attacks.

I'm sure you recognize all this. When you are disputing facts you are not attacking credentials. Red Herring arguments are also fallacious.

--69.209.59.178 (talk) 22:00, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Back on line after a 3-day absence from the Internet.

At this point, I think we are more in agreement than perhaps I realized. However, keep in mind, that Ehrman notes carefully in his book that he thinks SOME mythicists ARE reasonably credentialed (including Carrier), and OTHERS patently NOT credentialed. He tries to go to greater length to rebut the mythicists he DOES respect. However, I agree Ehrman overplays the credential card. (And Ehrman, IMO, was far more heavy-handed in his Huffington Post article than in the book itself.) However, I maintain the credential card can be in principle legitimate as a matter of economy of time, as long as the initial thrust is based on rebutting a fundamentally goofy !*premise*! that underlies much of the argument (THEN mention credentials), as indeed Ehrman DID do with both Acharya and with Freke and Ghandy (spelling?) (Dawkins has used the credential card in just this way in rhetoric against specific creationists, although in general Dawkins won't debate ANY creationist.) Regarding the back sources, Ehrman claims we can reasonably conclude that some of the existing Gospels are composites of earlier sources. I don't think he ever claims we !*have*! the documents Q or M, only that we can be reasonably certain they existed at one time. What baffles me is how Ehrman dates the latter to circa 35AD. Why not 50 AD?? (I'm debating whether I want to shell out to join the portion of his blog that is behind a pay-wall to ask him. We've met- he knows who I am & of course he's familiar with my father's academic work- and he answered one e-mail of mine, but if I want to keep pestering I might have to do that.)

You are very shrewd to observe than can be only one correct historical Jesus hypothesis. There are far too many. However, as Ehrman shrewdly pointed out in the preface to his 2000 book "jesus: apocalyptic prophet..." the Schweitzerian theory that Ehrman backs is rarely the subject of popular books in spite of being the view held by the majority of secular New Testament scholars. (Jesus believing in eminent apocalypse). And concerning the same theory, Robert Price has noted it is the only going theory that supports NO ideological/theological agenda.

But naturally, there could only be one true mythicist theory (at most). George Wells, and Earl Doherty have wildly different theories to account for the origin of Christianity, and some popular mythicist online literature seems to veer wildly between citations between one and another, without acknowledging the difference. Wells thinks the sources for Christian thinking are entirely Jewish, not pagan at all. Doherty of course is different. Wells also thinks Jesus may be a historical person who lived a century earlier than normally thought. Robert Price's earlier writings suggest Jesus is a composite of multiple people. But to write a popular essay summarizing the case for a mythical Jesus, while willy-nilly quoting from all three doesn't seem to me to be to swift.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:14, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Dating of NT writings

Is anyone else concerned that the dates given here for the NT writings, notably the gospels, are heavily biased to the early side? For example, it optimistically states Luke as being at the end of the 1st century, but afaik the earliest evidence we have for it is from Marcion's canon (and Marcion's Luke looks rather different than canonical Luke!) around 140. Its not even clear whether Marcion's Luke is a redaction of the synoptic Luke or the other way around! Matthew may be even harder to adequately date, but even a plausible 'no later than' date can't be rigorously pushed earlier than about 117 (assuming Ignatius is quoting Matthew and assuming Ignatius's writings aren't forgeries). Any rigorous attempt to adequately bound the dates would actually qualify as original research in the field! But at the very least we should attempt to give a (substantiated) range that scholarship has argued and be very clear that there is no real consensus. --69.209.77.48 (talk) 08:02, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Errantskeptics.com has a list of all the dates that have ever been proposed for Luke. [5] None are past 80 AD (alhtough there are exceptions they don't list- see below), although traditional Christian scholarship has tried to place it much earlier than secular scholarship. (Conservative Christians try to place it as early as 59 to 62. Secular scholarship tends to go more for 75-95, but see below) Although there is much doubt that the actual Luke of Acts is the real author, everyone takes the author at his word that he wrote the Gospel of Luke prior to writing the Book of Acts and that they are the same author. Unfortunately, dates for Acts vary wildly. Luke has to be dated later than Mark, and Mark is generally dated after the death of Peter, 65-70, and after the Fall of Jerusalem.

Those who go for a "medium" date for Luke note Acts ends abruptly with Paul's journey to Rome, tapering off inexplicably. Some note that Luke claims to have interviewed eyewitnesses to Jesus.

However, some think that Luke-Acts was written while in the throes of church conflict with Marcionitism/Gnosticism and would date Luke-Acts much much later, early 2nd century as you correctly state. This argument is pursued in Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle by Joseph B. Tyson. The above mentioned Joseph Hoffmann thinks that the struggle with Gnosticism had a much stronger influence on the shaping of the New Testament than most scholarship acknowledges. He admits his position is a minority one.

Marcion's heretical "Gospel of Marcion" has much material from Luke. Most think Marcion revised Luke, but if you hold that actually Luke is a revision of Marcion (a minority view), then Luke would be dated very late indeed. This minority view is what is proposed in Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle by Joseph B. Tyson.--WickerGuy (talk) 14:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I understood Luke and Acts were accepted as being by the same author by virtue of similar writing styles ... is this not the case? - David Gerard (talk) 15:42, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

This is one of the places that I have to emphatically agree with Carrier that 'mainstream' NT scholarship is failing. AFAIK, Marcion's gospel is our earliest evidence for Luke or something like Luke from any other writer or from extant manuscripts. Even assuming 'Luke' isn't lying outright (and he has motivation: to add authority to his version by claiming to be someone like Luke), the version of Luke we have may be heavily redacted from some written or oral tradition. Acts proveable existence is similarly late: "it is not before the last decades of the second century that one finds undisputed traces of the work." (John Townsend as cited on wikipedia on the subject of dating Acts). Termini ad quem should be assessed on such a basis.

So, for example, lets say we're certain that Mark post-dates the destruction of the Temple in 70AD (making that its *earliest* possible date). We know Luke uses Mark, so 75-150 rather than 'end of the first century' would be a legitimate date range for Luke. (Obviously you'd want scholarly sources for those rather than just my assertion. I'm using earliest Mark + 'epsilon' for the start, and Marcion for the end. Helmut Koester. (Ancient Christian Gospels. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press International, 1999. p. 334) could be used for ascertaining that terminus ad quem. And this is a hypothetical, an earlier Mark can possibly be argued, and some people reject Markan priority)

Of course, as far as I know, the earliest claimed attestation of Mark is by Papias (whose writings we don't have, sometime c.100-150, and whose claim is attested by Irenaeus in the late second century).

Anyway, we should assess a reasonable range for each work based on the citeable scholarship for each endpoint from the critical scholarship. I'm sure someone here is *more* familiar with the literature than I am.

--69.209.77.48 (talk) 19:09, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

PS: your linked 'dates' are opinions. What we want is critical scholarship that assesses *facts* to give us plausible dates, not someone going 'well i think its this'.

OK, I knew it was claimed they went together, but thought it was supported by actually examining the writing style (same as ascertaining which Pauline epistles were forged).

I put dates on stuff mostly based on Wikipedia cribbing - David Gerard (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't intend to indict Luke-Acts as a joint work, but late dates can be argued for *both* of them based on the record. --69.209.77.48 (talk) 19:26, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Similarity of writing style is indeed the basis for attributing them to the same author. At the same time, Luke says quite a few things about Paul that match poorly the record in Paul's own epistles re his travel itinerary, arguments with Jerusalem church, and if memory serves he gets elements of Paul's "Christology" wrong. For example, in Acts Paul is shown as going to each town first trying to convert Jews and if that doesn't work then trying to convert pagans. But in Paul's epistles, Paul seems to feel that he is especially commissioned to convert pagans, he leaves the work converting Jews to others. There are several other discrepancies between Paul's epistles and the Book of Acts. The traditional claim that this is written by the companion of Paul, Luke, is likely false.

I don't know what the logic is behind dating Luke to roughly the mid-70s AD. I can guess it may be the way Acts is abruptly cut off circa 60, but I would really have to look up sources in the libraries of either Stanford U, UC Berkeley, or the Graduate Theological Union (also in Berkeley). Does rationalwiki have a policy of reflecting what other sources say? We do NOT follow Wikipedia on the no original research biz (one thing I like about this site). But IMO we should state the late dates (Ugh!) are proposed but that a majority set it late 1st century. Essentially, dating of documents is based on both external and internal evidence!--WickerGuy (talk) 20:20, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I think it's something like "original research and personal surmise is allowed, but may be challenged" - David Gerard (talk) 20:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Postscript

To my somewhat scattered knowledge, at least two explanations have been offered for the above-mentioned discrepancy between Paul's epistles and the Book of Acts, one which I personally label the explanation from anti-Semitism and the other I label the explanation from anti-Gnosticism. According to the latter, Christianity was likely fragmented between two or three schools with conflicting theologies (the Jewish Jerusalem church and Pauline Christianity being two of them) but once various schools found a common enemy in Gnosticism, they patched up their differences and put on a united front, with the Paulists emerging more or less the dominant party. By this explanation, the Book of Acts portrays a misleading portrait of earlier church unity than really existed, just as in Presidential races a losing candidate may express harmony with a winning candidate (of the same party) that they earlier bitterly opposed. Paul and the Jerusalem church are as such shown in Acts patching up their differences far earlier than actually occurred in a largely fictional basis. The other explanation (from anti-Semitism) is that Acts was written at a time of increasing anti-Semitism in the church and wanted to show more examples of Jews (allegedly) rejecting Jesus. I suppose these aren't mutually exclusive. If the explanation from anti-Gnosticism is correct (I suspect R. Joseph Hoffman endorses it) than this would date Acts quite late!!!! On the other hand, Christianity was moving in an anti-Semitic direction in the late first century, so the explanation from anti-Semitism would allow an earlier dating for Acts.--WickerGuy (talk) 20:33, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

My point was mostly that all we can really say is something near Luke was written *sometime* between Mark (when?) and Marcion (~150). (And Marcion's Luke is quite divergent despite being the first attested). And if we accept 'Luke' wrote Acts as well, its dating is similar (and subsequent by the author's own admission), a claim not contradicted by the attested record for any plausible date for Acts itself. Attempting to propose a more narrow range than that cannot be substantiated, and while particular scholars may favor particular dates in that range, they should also be willing to acknowledge that the evidence for their pet dates aren't conclusive. --69.209.77.48 (talk) 21:29, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Many standard reference works say the dates are uncertain.--WickerGuy (talk) 07:25, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Ehrman and the penis statue

Ehrman says something that could be interpreted as Acharya having made up the penis statue. Carrier calls bullshit. Ehrman says Carrier's misinterpreted his words and of course he didn't mean the statue was made up, how ridiculous! Ehrman fans repeat this claim.

Except, Homebrewed Christianity 03-Apr-2012, "Bart Ehrman on Jesus’ Existence", 20'45"-21'10". In regards to the penis statue, Ehrman exclaims: "It's just made up! There is no such - it's completely made up. [laughs]"

How very unfortunate - David Gerard (talk) 21:45, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The exact line in Ehrman's book (p. 24) is "There is no penis-shaped statue of Peter the cock in the Vatican" after noting that Acharya labels the statue "Bronze sculpture of hidden in the Vatican of treasure of the Cock, symbol of Peter". Carrier produces evidence of a Vatican statue of a rooster with a penis, but admits it is probably not connected in any way with the apostle Peter!! So, this rebuts Ehrman how exactly??--WickerGuy (talk) 07:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

He implied in the book that Acharya just made it up, which isn't the case, and said in the above radio quote that the statue was "completely made up" (and, of course, it isn't) when discussing the example in the damn book, making it clear that this is what he meant in the book. You're deliberately being hard of thinking - David Gerard (talk) 07:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

In essence, Acharya made up the claim that the rooster is a symbol of Peter on the basis of an English word-play on "cock" and "rock". Ehrman never claims that he didn't mean the statue is made up- he says there is no Priapus-like statue of Peter in the Vatican.--WickerGuy (talk) 07:31, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

In fact, Ehrman claims the statue is "completely made up" in the above quote, which I've even given you the timestamps for - David Gerard (talk) 07:40, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The claim that the rooster is not a symbol of Peter is kind of hard to believe too, considering the prominent role a rooster plays in the most notable Gospel story about Peter. I'm not claiming that specific statue is meant to symbolize Peter, but while Acharya wasn't perfectly clear on the two actual claims (there exists such a statue, the cock is a symbol of Peter), they aren't trivially dismissable. Even if we accept Ehrman's apologetics (which don't explain the verbal quote), he's being far less charitable to Acharya than he expects us to be to him, for a statement at least as poorly worded. (Indeed, I'd consider Ehrman's gaffe worse because the 'misinterpretation' leads to an assumption of a 'fact' that isn't true, whereas misinterpreting Acharya merely generates an *interpretation* based on some known facts but which isn't likely.) --69.209.59.178 (talk) 08:54, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

I admit I did not listen to the radio broadcast that David has linked to. The bit about the statue in the book is the last of a series of bullet-pointed howlers from Acharya that run 1 and 2/3rds pages which includes statements like "Ireneaus was a Gnostic" followed by Ehrman pointing out Ireneaus was one of the most virulent opponents of Gnosticism. Coming after all of these others, the mention of the statue is fairly minor bit. What Ehrman is trying to do in this part of the book is set of a range of mythicist writers from worst to best. He wants to set up that some mythicists especially George Wells fully deserve to be taken seriously and others don't!! He respects Wells a lot, and to a considerable degree also Robert Price and in the original book....Richard Carrier. At the beginning of the book, he wishes to quickly dispose of the worst mythicists, which apparently he and Carrier agree include Acharya and after a long list of howlers concludes with the rooster statue. The statue is of a rooster with a penis-shaped beak. Acharya's claim rests on the notion that the rooster is a symbol of Saint Peter. Now I have heard that a rooster is sometimes used as a symbol of Peter's denial of Christ, but I have not heard it is a symbol of Peter. Carrier himself in his review of Ehrman's book says "that it [the statue] represents him [Peter] is only an interpretation". At any rate, if Ehrman was careless in his wording, it still seems to me to be a minor slip-up. Again I haven't listened to the radio broadcast. The wording in the book is "exists only in books like this [Acharya's] which like to make things up"--WickerGuy (talk) 13:50, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

So you're saying that the obvious implication of his words, and him actually stating said obvious implications outright, can't be the case and he must mean some nicer version than what he actually said? And that you haven't bothered listening to what he said before then claiming he couldn't possibly have meant what he said? - David Gerard (talk) 14:05, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

On the contrary, I am trying to bracket/qualify my thinking as being so far tentative and not fully conclusive, but explain what I think so far on the basis of what I fully admit is incomplete information, and reserve further judgment until I listen to the podcast. And admitting/conceding Ehrman may have made a very careless choice of words on the radio show. I realize that typing on the net can be misinterpreted without audio cues from tone of voice and video cues from facial expression, but was my tone really that hard to parse? Still, the original text of the book is there is specifically no phallic statue of Peter in the Vatican, and Carrier produces a phallic statue while admitting it is not necessarily of Peter.

But initially, this comes across to me as the equivalent of the Republican meme of claiming Al Gore claimed that he invented the Internet in the sense of having engineered it, while in fact Al Gore clearly intended to claim he wrote legislation as a Congressman that helped fund research that led to the development of the Internet. (Specifically in 1986 Gore introduced the Supercomputer Network Study Act of 1986, then in a 1999 interview Gore stated "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet" and Republicans are still claiming that Gore fraudulently claims to have "invented" [as in "engineered"] the Internet.

The distinction between a non-existent phallic statue of Peter and an existing phallic statue that is unlikely to be of Peter strikes me as fairly trivial. This is Carrier's very first item in his riposte to Ehrman, and its a cavil over the final item in a long list of over a dozen items that undermine Acharya's credibility, many others of which are far worse. Consider this argument. I say there is no painting of a shirtless John Wayne in the Buffalo Bill museum. Someone else yells "Yes there is. You're an idiot. Didn't you check your facts? oh but even though this dubious source says its John Wayne, it probably wasn't intended to be John Wayne, just a generic cowboy. John Wayne is just her interpretation." I mean, doesn't that sound just the faintest bit ridiculous??

I promise to listen to the podcast tomorrow morning, just to be sure.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:58, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Having looked back at your original post here, I see you wrote the words "and of course he [Ehrman] didn't mean the statue was made up." Ehrman never says that in so many words!! So I think he's off the hook. Although we are passionately debating whether or not the Jesus myth-story is made from whole cloth or fabricated from the life of an existing person, I think the distinction between Acharya's making up the phallic Peter statue from whole cloth or making it up from a phallic statue of unknown intent is rather academic. Ehrman's self-defense in his first reply to Carrier is verbatim "The statue does appear to exist. But it has nothing to do with Peter, as any sophomore in college with one semester of Greek under his belt and a course or two in religious studies could tell you." but he never ever ever denies having said Acharya made this up per your opening sentences.--WickerGuy (talk) 21:34, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Now listened (yech) to podcast

I have now listened to the podcast (after 3 days away from the Internet) and Ehrman does indeed there say that Acharya just made the statue up (much more specific than the book) in a way that suggests he may be unaware of the Vatican statue that Acharya has surely misidentified has having something to do with Peter (After all the statue's inscription says "savior of the world" a title which no Christian has ascribed to Peter). The opening intro to the podcast by the moderators is horribly horribly condescending to mythicists. The podcast is done by liberal Christians whom I normally respect far far more than fundamentalists, but their tone here is just too snide and snarky. Still, I don't think Ehrman has every denied having said this.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:47, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

A solution to the problem

As with 'King Arthur' Jesus-of-the-Bible is actually a compound of several historical characters - revolutionary/Judaic patriot, researcher into the historico-religious records and prophecies, religious leader, travellers to India and Glastonbury, and a father of children who went to France: one or more of these people were called Joshua/Jesus. The gospels were written some time after the events described and conflated the various stories - and we can now separate them to taste. 212.85.6.26 (talk) 14:13, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Much of the later additions to the King Arthur legend were added by French and German authors during the period that the Arthurian legends were more widely circulating in those countries than in England (High Middle Ages). These later accretions to the King Arthur legend are entirely fictitious. While there is considerable debate over whether ANY historical figure AT ALL lies behind the Arthur legends, and several candidates have been proposed including Lucius Artorius Castus, Ambrosius Aurelianus and others. But I know of no one who considers Arthur a composite of multiple figures. That theory HAS been proposed for Jesus however, most recently in earlier writings of Robert Price.--WickerGuy (talk) 18:22, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

"It was the brilliant warrior and architect of this truce with the Saxons, Arthur the Dux Bellorum, who provides the basis for the myths and legends of the composite character we now know as King Arthur." (Day, David (1999) King Arthur)

"However, he cannot cover the whole of Arthur's reputed lifespan — no one could — and the legendary King may be a composite character, as, for example, Merlin is." Lacy, Norris J.; Geoffrey Ashe, Debra N. Mancoff (1997) The Arthurian Handbook Page 283)

King Arthur, at least the one everyone is familiar with, is clearly a composite character. He lives in a castle better suited to the 13th century, dresses in plate armor the 14th, and espouses values not seen until the 12th.--BruceGrubb (talk) 22:26, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

I tend to agree, particularly with the notion that Arthur's story as commonly told is anachronistic. (So may also be parts of the Gospel of Matthew. The Pharisees were far more powerful with it was written than they were in Jesus' lifetime.) But IMO no one really knows the original seed of the Arthur stories.--WickerGuy (talk) 22:55, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Move page to "Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth"

Don't you think it would be better if the article's name was "Evidence for the historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth" and the current one was a redirect? It would be religiously, doctrinally and historically neutral (it is not everybody's opinion that Jesus was a/the Christ). --Radoslav Georgiev (talk) 22:04, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Aagree and support.--WickerGuy (talk) 17:48, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Can't say I'm fussed, but I don't object. Anyone else got an opinion? - David Gerard (talk) 21:31, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

Last person to get fussed about the messiah/christ thing made a real mess of this place. I say leave it alone, who really cares? ħuman 03:03, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

I would not object to the page being moved, but I am not going to push for it either. ListenerX^TalkerX 03:06, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Surely these two people are synonymous - at least in the public mind. What exactly are the differences between them?--Bob^{"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."} 17:49, 14 May 2012 (UTC)