Atheos

No worries

You then spend some time on the Nazareth problem, which I've looked into myself over the years. I tend to disagree with your conclusion that the archaeological discoveries near modern Nazareth corroborate the existence of a town named Nazareth in the 1st century, but you know that already. You also know that Peter, Paul and John are not corroborated in any meaningful way.

That leaves us with a paucity of story-specific information no more substantive than would be necessary to prove to any reasonable person's satisfaction that Odysseus or King Arthur existed.


Why not? If most of it is obviously made up why not just assume the whole thing was? I notice that you haven't mentioned Herod's slaughter of the innocents or Tiberius' census. These events would have left easily discoverable evidence in the historical record. Their blinding silence is a testament to the idea that the stories were fabrications that used some real world characters and situations.

You are assuming the consequent again with this line of reasoning. First of all, you're assuming you know the "source's direct and obvious interest". This claim is absurd on the face. To begin with you have no idea how many different people constitute the source. And the idea that all of them had the same "obvious interest" is about as likely as the main protagonist rising from the dead and floating off into the sky.

As a skeptic my first tendency is to think that nobody went about creating these stories with a purposeful intent to deceive. More likely they started as campfire or bedtime stories. Children grew up hearing these stories and a few began believing them and perhaps redacting them using other cultural hero-myths of the time. Decades later the Jewish sect of Christianity began to coalesce. Various "gospels" were published. The ones that happened to fit more closely with Constantine's beliefs in the 4th century were branded "Orthodox" and the rest were branded heretical.

More to your point about criterion of dissimilarity, in the story Peter's bumbling mistakes were a plot device. Without Jimmy Olsen Superman wouldn't look as interesting either. How do you know the intent of the anonymous sources of these myths wasn't the most likely one imaginable: to create a story that was interesting.

With good reason, as I've pointed out above. If I were attempting to create a story people would find compelling I'd need to provide characters who eventually became heroes in spite of their character flaws.

Look, I appreciate your viewpoints on this but so far all you've done is provide an opinion that is no better than the opinion of what you keep calling "superskeptics". My opinion is that the whole thing was probably made up, but if there turned up to be irrefutable evidence that some guy named Jesus in the right time-frame assembled a group of followers, pissed off the wrong people and got his ass crucified I'd be just fine with it.

The problem here is that there is so much about the story that doesn't make sense it's difficult for me to justify finding reason to believe any of it. Do you believe the Sanhedrin council convened a special session near midnight on Passover eve to deal with Jesus? C'mon.

arnoldo

Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 220 A.D.) mentions the census.


IIRC, when any territory first came under the direct control of Rome, a census was taken primarily for tax purposes. There is alleged archaeological records which may support Tertullian's statement regarding the census.

As far as the slaughter of the innocents what kind of "easily discoverable evidence in the historical record" would you expect?

bacht

I'm sorry Abe, but it seems you've ignored all the argument and advice people here have given you in good faith. You haven't demonstrated to me that you really understand basic logic and the rules of evidence. You politely acknowledge comments and then just carry on with whatever crusade it is you're following.

I don't expect you to become an atheist/mythicist/whatever, but to simply repeat over and over your reliance on the canonical texts (in English translation!) is fruitless imo. We have a tremendous advantage over earlier scholars in the existence and analysis of extra-canonical texts like the DSS & Nag Hammadi books, and the ongoing work on previously known material like Stephan Huller's research in the Samaritan tradition.

ApostateAbe

I have ignored ALL the argument and advice? Seriously? Jesus! To be honest, I feel very worn out, I thought, because I am doing too much of the opposite.

show_no_mercy

I've already told you how normal history is done. Relying solely on the NT is a bias that is a result of 1,500 years of orthodoxy - that is not how history is done. No NT scholar that I've read ever admits to this bias. Why is Acts of the Apostles used as a historical source in NT studies yet the Acts of Thomas is not? Oh that's right - one is "orthodox" and one is "heterodox". And by definition (otherwise known as an unjustified assumption), gnosticism cannot be "true" as it is "too late" to have historical value. And therefore - also by definition - Acts of the Apostles must be "early" even though the only arguments for its priority are apologetics.

This all just amounts to "it's better to make up a cool sounding story than stick with the evidence that we have". If it's inconclusive whether a person was murdered by their spouse, should we throw the spouse in prison just because we have to make up a story? Of course not. Maybe NT historians should be honest with the type of data that they have instead of inventing narratives. But they would never do this because the primary people that want those narratives are the religious, and the religious are the ones who pay their salaries.

Jesus has been the dominant cultural icon in the West for almost 2,000 years. It doesn't pay the bills to say that there's nothing we can know about him, or that he might not have even existed. Which is probably why, as Hector Avalos pointed out, that Biblical Studies as it is currently practiced should end.

ApostateAbe

You then spend some time on the Nazareth problem, which I've looked into myself over the years. I tend to disagree with your conclusion that the archaeological discoveries near modern Nazareth corroborate the existence of a town named Nazareth in the 1st century, but you know that already.

I'll keep coming back to the Argument to the Best Explanation. Is that something you would agree with, by the way? I don't want to use it if you don't share agreement with it.

It is an issue, because the underlying philosophy of the people I call superskeptics, people such as Toto and Robert Price, is that the "best explanation" really doesn't often count for much so often in New Testament studies, because the evidence is so questionable. If the evidence is as doubtful as it is, then even the best explanation counts for very little.

Toto and others sometimes claim that is the way normal history is done, and I would love to see good evidence for that. To me, the best explanation, even if it is based on doubtful evidence, still counts for plenty, simply because it is the best. Tell me if you agree with Toto or if you agree with me on this point, or if you fall somewhere in between. Toto's philosophy, which I sometimes call deconstructionism (agnosticism of all explanations based on textual evidence) is a philosophy that is very difficult for me to fight. It is like fighting dogma, only it isn't a dogma; it is a reverse-dogma, a somewhat a priori refusal to form conclusions of any sort.

If you agree with ABE and you are willing to argue about what is the best explanation, then we can talk about first-century Nazareth.

Atheos

Does he mention a census that required everyone to go back to the home of their ancestors?

Nobody doubts that census's occurred. Hell, the bible claims that Yahweh once whipped king David's ass for conducting one. The absurdity of a census that required everyone go back where their ancestors lived 800 years ago shouldn't have to be described.

However, I hate to have to point out the freaking obvious: Tertullian mentioning this in 160 C.E. is no different from me talking about a conspiracy between John Wilkes Booth and several key members of the Republican Party to have Lincoln assassinated. If no evidence of any such conspiracy is to be found anywhere between the time it happened and the time I mention it would reasonable historians hundreds of years later assume my comments were of any real value?

The "best explanation" means squat as far as I'm concerned if there are other equally plausible explanations to be had.

However, and let me be clear on this, the story is a myth. We know that. People don't get born of a virgin impregnated by a god. People don't turn water into wine, heal blindness, leprosy, paralysis or raise people from the dead. People don't walk on water, resurrect from the dead, magically appear and vanish in locked rooms or float off into the sky. These are the elements of a myth.

The way I approach a myth is to assume that everything about it is fictional unless there is good reason to believe otherwise. Yes there were Jews. Yes there was Rome, crucifixions, Pontius Pilate, Samaritans, John the Baptist and other effects from the story. Even if there was Nazareth and other obscure details later confirmed to be actual it still doesn't mean the story is of any real historical value. To me the better explanation of those sorts of details is that one of the originators of the oral traditions that led up to the homologated myth came from the village of Nazareth and gave his homies some love in the storyline. Simple, elegant and it perfectly satisfies where these details came from.

In other words I'm consistent. I treat the stories of "Jesus the Magic Jew" the same way I treat the stories of "Moroni the Magic Messenger to Joseph Smith". It didn't really happen.

arnoldo

Details. . .

show_no_mercy

Imagine the huge clusterfuck that would happen if hundreds of thousands of Jews had to return to the home of their ancestors just for a census. It would be a logistical nightmare. Return home? Yes. Return to the home of your ancestors? Not so much.

arnoldo

It would also appear to be a logistical nightmare for all of the jews to arrive at Jerusalem to celebrate passover year after year. But many jews seemed to manage.