Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Diogenes the Cynic · 05-03-2012, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdl

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Ehrman does not argue for the authenticity of the TF and specifically says it is NOT evidence for HJ, soa Viklund's whole premise is flawed.

I've read the book, Diogenes. Ehrman clearly does argue for an authentic core. He says "It is far more likely that the core of the passage does go back to Josephus himself."

Joseph

You're taking this quote out of context. What Ehrman says is that it's more likely a core goes back to Josephus than that it was forged by Eusebius. He isn't arguing for authenticity there, just arguing against the Esuebian hypothesis.

Roger Viklund · 05-03-2012, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdl

I've read the book, Diogenes. Ehrman clearly does argue for an authentic core. He says "It is far more likely that the core of the passage does go back to Josephus himself."

Joseph

You're taking this quote out of context. What Ehrman says is that it's more likely a core goes back to Josephus than that it was forged by Eusebius. He isn't arguing for authenticity there, just arguing against the Esuebian hypothesis.

Well, he uses this argument nearly everywhere when he deals with Josephus.

When Ehrman deals with Olson he writes the following:

Quote:

There is in fact little in the Testimonium that is more like Eusebius than Josephus, and a good deal of the passage does indeed read like it was written by Josephus. It is far more likely that the core of the passage actually does go back to Josephus himself.

But he uses this hypothetical version of the Testimonium to dismiss most of the other mythicist arguments also:

Quote:

If one takes out the obviously Christian comments, the passage may have been rather innocuous, reading something like this:

Quote:

If this is the original form of the passage, then Josephus had some solid historical information about Jesus’s life: Jesus was known for his wisdom and teaching; he was thought to have done remarkable deeds; he had numerous followers; he was condemned to be crucified by Pontius Pilate because of Jewish accusations brought against him; and he continued to have followers among the Christians after his death.

Quote:

The pared-down version of Josephus—the one that others have thought was original, without the Christian additions—contains very little that could have been used by the early Christian writers to defend Jesus and his followers from attacks by pagan intellectuals. It is a very neutral statement.

Quote:

[Josephus] was completely opposed to anyone who might foment an uprising against Rome (remember: he was writing as a privileged guest in the court of the Roman emperor). But it needs to be stressed that in the possibly original form of the Testimonium there is not a word about Jesus being a messiah figure or even a political leader.

Quote:

These accusations typically included such claims as that he was born out of wedlock to a peasant Jewish woman who was seduced by a Roman soldier; that he was an unskilled carpenter; that he could not control his temper; and that he died a shameful death on the cross. Nothing in the possibly original statement of Josephus seems relevant to any of these charges.

Quote:

The Testimonium is so restrained, with only a couple of fairly reserved sentences here and there, that it does not read like a Christian apocryphal account of Jesus written for the occasion. It reads much more like what you get elsewhere throughout the manuscript tradition of ancient writings: a touch-up job that a scribe could easily do.

aa5874 · 05-03-2012, 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jdl

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Ehrman does not argue for the authenticity of the TF and specifically says it is NOT evidence for HJ, soa Viklund's whole premise is flawed.

I've read the book, Diogenes. Ehrman clearly does argue for an authentic core. He says "It is far more likely that the core of the passage does go back to Josephus himself."

Joseph

But, Ehrman also claimed the TF passage does not really help the HJ argument.

Ehrman was making STRAWMAN arguments.

Diogenes the Cynic · 05-03-2012, 04:30 PM

This is what else Ehrman says:

Quote:

But that is not the main point I want to make about the Testimonium. My main point is that My main point is that whether the Testimonium is authentically from Josephus (in its pared-down form) or not probably does not ultimately matter for the question I am pursuing here. Whether or not Jesus lived has to be decided on other kinds of evidence from this. And here is why. Suppose Josephus really did write the Testimonium. That would show that by 93 CE—some sixty or more years after the traditional date of Jesus’s death—a Jewish historian of Palestine had some information about him. And where would Josephus have derived this information? He would have heard stories about Jesus that were in circulation. There is nothing to suggest that Josephus had actually read the Gospels (he almost certainly had not) or that he did any kind of primary research into the life of Jesus by examining Roman records of some kind (there weren’t any). But as we will see later, we already know for lots of other reasons and on lots of other grounds that there were stories about Jesus floating around in Palestine by the end of the first century and much earlier. So even if the Testimonium, in the pared-down form, was written by Josephus, it does not give us much more evidence than we already have on the question of whether there really was a man Jesus. If, by contrast, the Testimonium was not written by Josephus, we again are neither helped nor hurt in our quest to know whether Jesus lived. There is certainly no reason to think if Jesus lived that Josephus must have mentioned him. He doesn’t mention most Jews of the first century. Recent estimates suggest that there were possibly up to a million Jews living in Palestine at any one time in the early first century. (If you add up the different persons living in any given year, as new people are born and others die, the total numbers of Jews living throughout the period are obviously much higher.)23 Josephus does not mention 99 percent of them—or rather, more than 99 percent. So why would he mention Jesus? You cannot say that he would have mentioned Jesus because anyone who did all those amazing miraculous deeds would surely be mentioned. As I pointed out earlier, the question of what Jesus actually did has to come after we establish that he lived, not before. As a result, even though both the mythicists and their opponents like to fight long and hard over the Testimonium of Josephus, in fact it is only marginally relevant to the question of whether Jesus existed.

Ehrman, Bart D. (2012-03-20). Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth (Kindle Locations 1012-1015). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

Ehrman does not try to use the TF as an argument for historicity, he only argues against a case for the whole thing as a Eusebian forgery. Saying the core is not likely a Eusebian forgery is not the same thing as arguing for TF as evidence for historicity and Ehrman explicitly rejects it as such.

GakuseiDon · 05-03-2012, 05:37 PM

Roger, looking at your blog page, you write (emphasis in the original):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Viklund's Blog

The line that it was the Jews who “killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets” also implies that Paul himself was not a Jew, which he obviously was and also said he was. In fact it was “the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus” and “they persecuted us”, and “they are not pleasing to God” and “they might be saved” and “wrath has come upon them”.

But doesn't Paul's "us" refer to "the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus"? And Paul is contrasting the Thessalians with their persecution by "their fellow countrymen", who are the "them". So Paul's "them" are those Jews persecuting "us", the churches of God in Christ in Judea. Paul also writes on how "the Jews" were persecuting him personally (see below).

From your list of Pearson's objections:

Quote:

This passage points to a period of persecution of Christians in Judea between 44 and 66 (when the Jewish War against Rome began) CE — there is no other evidence for such persecution

Paul at least hints of this, when he talks about the beatings he received at the hands of "the Jews":

2Cr 11:24 Of the Jews five times received I forty [stripes] save one.
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned...

I know you raised a number of other good points which I haven't addressed, but these were the ones that stuck out to me.

So, using Ehrman's translation of 1 Thes 2:

Quote:

14 Be imitators, brothers, of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus, because you yourselves suffer the same things by your own fellow citizens as they do by the Jews (or the Judeans),
15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us, and are not pleasing to God and to all people,
16 who forbade us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, in order to fill up the full measure of their sins always. But wrath has come upon them at last.

I would argue that 14 & 15 are consistent with how Paul elsewhere implies persecution by Jews against the "churches of God in Christ", first by Paul himself and later the persecution directed against Paul. 14 doesn't need to be the work of an interpolator, and neither does 15, which suggests that the Jews currently persecuting the churches of God in Christ are also the ones who killed Jesus and the prophets.

The only questionable part to me is "wrath has come upon them at last". But if this (or 1 Thes 2:14-16 as a whole) has been deliberately inserted by a later interpolator as a reference to the Temple, why didn't he/she refer directly to the destruction of the Temple? But if this would have been considered too obviously anachronistic by the interpolator, why refer to the wrath coming upon them "at last" at all?

To me, the last part reads like a marginal note referring to the destruction of the Temple, that worked itself into the text. In that case, as Ehrman points out, there is no reason for the rest of 1 Thes 2:14-16 to be the same. So only "the wrath has come upon them at last" would need to be in the marginal note, and the rest original to Paul (though if mythicism is true, then perhaps the "both the Lord Jesus" part in 15 may have been an interpolation).

jdl · 05-03-2012, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

You're taking this quote out of context. What Ehrman says is that it's more likely a core goes back to Josephus than that it was forged by Eusebius. He isn't arguing for authenticity there, just arguing against the Esuebian hypothesis.

The context is the entire section on the TF. Yes, what I quoted was from the paragraph about Olsen's thesis, but Ehrman makes use of his reconstructed TF in a way that confirms he thinks the passage is partially authentic. You couldn't walk away with the impression that Ehrman entertains any possibility of interpolation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

Saying the core is not likely a Eusebian forgery is not the same thing as arguing for TF as evidence for historicity and Ehrman explicitly rejects it as such.

This is what annoys me about you, Diogenes. You put on the most condescending tone while completely missing the point. Don't you understand this has nothing to do with the historicity of Jesus? Ehrman creates a hypothetical original TF without any manuscript evidence, but complains about lack of manuscript evidence when it comes to 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16. What on earth is the relevance of whether or not Ehrman uses the TF to argue for historicity?

Joseph

Diogenes the Cynic · 05-03-2012, 07:26 PM

He is refuting a (frankly hare-brained) mythicist argument for Eusebian forgery by pointing out that the core is more likely to be authentic than to be Eusebian. It's not essentially an argument for authenticity, or against the possibility of a total forgery, but specifically against a Eusebian forgery.

hjalti · 05-04-2012, 01:00 AM

Quote:

He is refuting a (frankly hare-brained) mythicist argument for Eusebian forgery by pointing out that the core is more likely to be authentic than to be Eusebian.

A "mythicist argument"? Ken Olson is a mythicist?

Steven Carr · 05-04-2012, 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

So, using Ehrman's translation of 1 Thes 2:

Quote:

14 Be imitators, brothers, of the churches of God that are in Judea in Christ Jesus, because you yourselves suffer the same things by your own fellow citizens as they do by the Jews (or the Judeans),
15 who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us, and are not pleasing to God and to all people,
16 who forbade us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved, in order to fill up the full measure of their sins always. But wrath has come upon them at last.

I would argue that 14 & 15 are consistent with how Paul elsewhere implies persecution by Jews against the "churches of God in Christ", first by Paul himself and later the persecution directed against Paul. 14 doesn't need to be the work of an interpolator, and neither does 15, which suggests that the Jews currently persecuting the churches of God in Christ are also the ones who killed Jesus and the prophets.

But the Jews didn't kill Jesus. The Romans killed Jesus. Ask Bart.

What happened in Ehrman's translation to verse 15 saying '...who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.'? Perhaps he is using an alternative meaning? Quite possibly he is.

How was Paul driven out of Judea? He only went there once every fifteen years or so.

How was Paul persecuted by the Jews in Judea - the ones who killed Jesus?

How was Paul forbidden to speak to the Gentiles?

If the Jews are busy persecuting Christians and killed Jesus, why would Paul explain in Romans 10 that the reason Jews can't be expected to believe in Jesus is that they had never heard of him, until Christians were sent to preach about him?

And why would Josephus claim that Jesus was a wise man, if it was the Jews that killed Jesus?

Steven Carr · 05-04-2012, 02:37 AM

It goes without saying, of course, that Paul is oblivious of any persecution of Jesus himself while he was supposedly preaching.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

05-03-2012, 07:26 PM	#17
Diogenes the Cynic Moderator - Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Twin Cities, Minnesota Posts: 4,639	He is refuting a (frankly hare-brained) mythicist argument for Eusebian forgery by pointing out that the core is more likely to be authentic than to be Eusebian. It's not essentially an argument for authenticity, or against the possibility of a total forgery, but specifically against a Eusebian forgery.

05-04-2012, 02:37 AM	#20
Steven Carr Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: England Posts: 5,629	It goes without saying, of course, that Paul is oblivious of any persecution of Jesus himself while he was supposedly preaching.

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.