ApostateAbe

"Sound" overstates the degree of certainty that you can have. And you don't know when the gospels were written, or who wrote them, so it's not clear what you can really conclude.

So long as you understand my perspective, I will be happy. Like many other writings and myths, we can sketch rough profiles of the authors based on the contents. I am not asking you to accept that, but it is the way that I think. For example, the author of the gospel of Mark was a first-century Greek Christian who believed that the lowly outsiders are most beloved and would receive the greatest rewards in the kingdom of heaven. Being a Christian adherent, he is likely to have believed everything that he himself wrote about Jesus, or at least he wanted to leave that impression with others. The gospel, therefore, contains an abundance of knowledge about the author. That is not to say it is absolutely certain. As usual, I choose the judgments that merely seem highest on a ladder of relative probability.

What if the documents are forged or fictional?

Then we can normally discern such a thing, as scholars have done with half of the Pauline epistles. And, we may still make judgments about history based on the contents. My favorite example is 2 Peter 3:3-8, not actually written by Peter, but by a second century Christian forger.

³First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. ⁴They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." ⁵But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ⁷By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

⁸But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.

Should we not make any conclusions about history, if only tentative, based on this passage? I would love to have your opinion.

Your working explanation is wrong. I have just examined the evidence and found it wanting. I have read or listened to the justifications for inferring a historical Jesus, and they seem obviously flimsy rationalizations not worth taking seriously, even if the people who write them have PhD's.

My apologies. Do you figure it was a mistake to recommend the book Derrida for Beginners (or via: amazon.co.uk)? I would like to know what agreement that you have with Derrida, if any. I have misunderstood you for too long.

Funny, it also just happens to be the conventional wisdom. How did you evaluate the probability? Why is this the best explanation? Why do the gospels count as evidence?

I'll tell you my account of how I arrived at my conclusion, though I may have told you already. About seven years ago, I went from Christianity to atheism overnight, and I continued investigating and debating Christians on the Internet. There was a set of assertions that Jesus was a myth who was born from the myths of Mithra. It seemed believable and authoritative, so I brought it to ChristianForums.com. A liberal Christian challenged it. I could not find the evidence. The evidence did not support it, in fact. So, I admitted defeat. I still thought it probable that Jesus was merely myth, because the only sources that attest to his existence also attest to miracles. I came across Doherty's Jesus Puzzle website, and it seemed to make a case for it, including the skepticism of Josephus's Testimonium Flavianum. So, I tentatively accepted it, though I didn't feel confident enough to argue for it. Then, I came across an anti-apologetic website that made the point that Jesus made failed prophecies of the end of the world. It wasn't a historicist point--it was an anti-apologetic point--but it struck me as firm evidence that there really was a human Jesus. The mythicist theories could not explain this with nearly the elegance as an actual human doomsday cult leader named Jesus. Having no other knowledge about this theory, I started a thread, right here in the BC&H, making the proposal that Jesus existed based on this evidence. I was quickly informed that I was not the first to make this proposal. It was a dominant theory within the scholarship, and someone recommended Bart Ehrman's book, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (or via: amazon.co.uk). I ordered it from Amazon, I read it, and I established my position. To me, it has always been about the evidence and probability. I thought in terms of "elegance," a word that Carl Sagan used to describe the best scientific explanation for the evidence. An "elegant" theory predicts the evidence, not just explains the evidence. It corresponds to "explanatory power" of ABE. I am so glad that you pointed me to ABE.

Toto

This is not supposed to be about your personal preferences. There should be some common agreement on general secular principles, even if we disagree on the ultimate conclusion. Right now, I only understand that there is something wrong with your reasoning and conclusions.

The gospel does not contain the information that it was written by a first century Greek Christian. The rest is your imagination.

You mean that at least half of the Pauline epistles have been tagged as not written by "Paul," using the most conservative methodology possible.

I don't see how this follows.

I recommended Derrida as an aid to following Price's thinking. I am not a particular follower of Derrida, although there is some value in what he says.

There is no particular elegance to this theory. It doesn't explain why the Christian movement lasted after its leader was killed, or why none of Jesus' followers were crucified along with him. It doesn't explain the extensive use of the Hebrew Scriptures to construct the life of Jesus. It doesn't explain why either Jews or gentiles were attracted to a religion based on failed prophecy. It just gives you a solution to your question of whether Jesus existed.

ApostateAbe

I recommended Derrida as an aid to following Price's thinking. I am not a particular follower of Derrida, although there is some value in what he says.

That is good for me to know. Can you please tell me specifically what components of the philosophy of Derrida that you agree with? I ask because I could find almost nothing about Derrida that I judged both relevant and agreeable. Thanks, and I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

I don't see how this follows.

OK, I am happy to explain. 2 Peter 3:3-8 is the passage that I use to prove the hypothesis that Christians were left in a very awkward position well after the death of the generation of Jesus. The author "Peter" makes a fraudulent prophecy that is really only a reflection of the ridicule directed at Christians in his own time--that Jesus didn't really return to Earth in time for the deadline that he himself set. We make an inference about history, not by taking the author's word for it, but by choosing the best explanation for why the author wrote what he did. What do you think about that argument? Based on your way of thinking, it seems like you would be led to dismiss that conclusion as insufficiently certain, and I am still not sure why a reasonable person like you would settle on such a lack of conclusion.

Toto

The relevance is that Price thinks that "sola scriptura" is essentially Derridean.

And yet, 2 Peter does not talk about Jesus' return, just his coming, as if the problem was that early Christians predicted the first coming of the savior. How does that fit in?

These end of day cults are a dime a dozen today, and when their predictions fail, it doesn't faze them. They go back and reinterpret the scriptures and pick a new date.

We can see from that passage that someone predicted the coming of the Lord, but not that Jesus was the one who made the prediction.

Consider "I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles." It was the Holy Prophets and the Apostles who channeled Jesus' words who talked about his "coming" - no evidence that they meant a second coming, or than at earthly Jesus predicted his own return while on earth.

This is pretty basic.

ApostateAbe

Pretty basic. I am encouraged that you at least imply that some historical knowledge can be inferred from this, though you seem to rest on much more ambiguity and much less inferred knowledge than I would. Would you draw any connection in doctrine or tradition between 2 Peter 3:3-8 and Mark 9:1 (or Mark 13:30)? Are they referring to the same prophecy? Or is that also too uncertain? I draw a connection based on a principle called, "consilience," which is a principle typically applied in science, but it has equal applicability in the study of history. What do you think?

aa5874

But, even an apologetic source claimed 2 Peter does NOT belong to the Canon.

2 Peter is a forgery.

Now, Jesus did not have to actually exist for someone to claim he did and that he was coming back to earth.

People today believe Jesus existed as a God/man and that he is SCHEDULE to return any day even though they cannot now or before prove or demonstrate that he did really live in Galilee for about thirty years.

The Jesus STORY can be satisfied by belief ALONE.

GakuseiDon

Matthew also uses the same word "parousia":

Mat 24:3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming ("parousia"), and of the end of the world?

Doug Shaver

I should think so. However, the many hours I have spent on academic search engines has so far failed to find those people.

I've already read it, but thank you.

For historiographical purposes, the New Testament is not primary, with one exception. It is a primary source for Paul's thinking. For anything else pertaining to Christianity's origins, it is secondary at best.

It's covered by being dismissed as irrelevant. Van Voorst makes that quite clear. What he does not make clear is why that is the case.

And on what do you ground that inference? Do you regard it as a general principle that any document with a similar introduction was written with the intention that it be taken as factual history? If not, then on what basis do you decide when an introduction so written should be taken at face value and when it should not?

Because Christian tradition says so, that's why.

I agree. It is the strikingly obvious explanation -- given a presupposition of Jesus' historicity. That presupposition is what almost nobody in the academy is giving any thought to.

As I said, they all hinge on the presupposition of Jesus' historicity. Without that presupposition, all those "generally accepted beliefs" that we throw under the bus have no rational foundation.

The academy didn't establish them. Christian orthodoxy established them, and the academy just inherited them.

Doug Shaver

If the only question relevant to a determination of whether Jesus existed were "What did Paul mean when he called James the 'brother of the lord?' then, just possibly, you would have a good case. But it is not the only relevant question. Paul's epistle to the Galatians is not the only document pertinent to an investigation of how, and by whom, the Christian religion was founded. The other NT writings are also pertinent, and so is every other surviving Christian document that was produced during the first three centuries CE. And they're all equally pertinent. The NT writings do not merit any kind of evidential priority or presumptive reliability simply because they happen to have been canonized.

Toto

No, I don't. I don't know when it was written or who wrote it. I only know that it does not support your historical theory.

That's not consilience. Consilience involves separate and independent lines of evidence that lead to the same conclusion. All we know is that some documents of an uncertain date speak of predictions of the parousia, or the coming of Christ. We don't know who predicted this - a figure comparable to Jesus, or some of his followers.