Juststeve

dog-on:

In support of Abe I don't think it matters whether the Gospels reflect the unanimous beliefs of all Christians or just the beliefs of some. The question remain, how did they come to believe what they believed.

Steve

ApostateAbe

OK, thanks. You do find some things wrong with the standard way that I argue. You call it "circular." I think that is the wrong word to use, and I'll explain why.

You say, "Your argument is circular because texts cannot be the supporting evidence for the content of the texts and there is, in fact, no evidence external to the texts to support the content."

A circular argument is where we assume our conclusions. It can be otherwise known as a "tautology." But, your objection is not about circularity. It is about lack of multiple attestation. If you think that the lack of multiple attestation is the problem, then that should be the phrase you use, not "circular." Sometimes, in fact, we have no shame in accepting a claim that is contained in only one historical source. For example, there may have been only one newspaper article that said anything about an obscure event that happened during the American Civil War or whatever. Whatever may be wrong with accepting such claims, it is not "circular." I don't mean to be a dick about this, but I would love it if you wouldn't conflate your objections like that, because it very much misleads me about what I am doing wrong in your opinion.

gurugeorge

Yes that's exactly right. That's what the investigation is. The investigation is, here we have a bunch of scribblings and a religious tradition - how did these come to be?

The scribblings are a myth - they speak of a theologically-laden, fantastic entity who was supposedly real (i.e. that's what the people believed then - roughly, that some type of miracle-working god-man combo walked the earth).

One possible explanation is that the myth developed from an ordinary human being called Jesus.

Another possible explanation is that the myth was made up as a result of various circumstances not at any point involving an ordinary human being called Jesus.

The second position is plausible out of the gate, because people make stuff up all the time, and it's how many religions start. People have visions and mystical experiences; people read things into scripture, etc., etc. Most religions start in some kind of visionary experience (man talks to "god", "spirit", etc., and brings back a "message" of some sort).

The first position would only be plausible if you could independently identify a man who might fit aspects of the story.

The second position is made even more plausible by the "smoking gun" that we have visionary experience as the earliest known source of the religion ("Paul"'s visionary experience). Plus, all the evidence we have for the cult, points to this "Paul" being the actual founder (at least in terms of it being a cult that spread beyond the Jewish milieu).

So until we find evidence for a man Jesus (perhaps a lost letter of "Paul" where an internal "discipleship" connection is made between one of the "Pillars" and a human Jesus, or a lost bit of writing by a contemporary like Philo, which mentions the human Jesus) the second position is the most plausible.

We simply haven't found any evidence of a man, external to the very cult texts under investigation. We can't triangulate the hypothetical human being at the root of the myth, from any sources outside the cult texts.

Furthermore, many people have looked into the myth, and there's not one element of the myth that somebody somewhere thinks can't be understood without recourse to a human Jesus (Robert Price's point), so that even if there was a man, the actual texts we have say nothing original about a human Jesus, i.e. they can't be evidence for him. (Or, to put it another way, since almost all the elements can be traced to already-known sources that have nothing to do with a human being Jesus, they are suspect as evidence for that human Jesus.)

So the second position has the most "explanatory power" (until and unless some startling new evidence supporting the existence of a human Jesus comes to light).

Christianity started in the scriptural studies and visionary and mystical experience of the "Pillars" and "Paul", from which they conceived that a god-man had walked the earth in the recent past. This has the most "explanatory power" for a bunch of texts from which no hint of an actual human being can be gleaned, only human-sounding elements to a myth.

dog-on

I think you might take a moment and read what I wrote again and then think a bit about why I would call your argument circular. Multiple attestation is actually irrelevant to why your argument is, in fact, circular.

Toto

It's not circular, it is just wrong.

The canonical Christian texts are much too late to be the earliest Christian beliefs.

The beliefs at the time the texts were written are not best explained as somehow based on actual history.

dog-on

Yup, that is the question alright.

Do you think that such beliefs necessarily require any more than believing something that someone tells you?

Juststeve

Dog-on:

Not necessarily, no, but you would need to ask where the belief, if it was a belief and not an act of fraud, arose. For example, I believe I was born in Lincoln Nebraska because that's what someone told me. I can't say I really remember.

Steve

ApostateAbe

I read what you wrote, I thought about it, and I think I have made good sense of it. You think:

• A premise is questionable and does not have enough evidence
• A premise is wrong because there is a better explanation that fits the evidence better.
• A premise is wrong because it does not have evidence external to the texts.

Each of the points are worthy objections. However, the argument is not circular. The word, "circular" should not be used whenever someone thinks it is better to rely on the claims within a text rather than not. Yeah, maybe the claims really are untrustworthy. Maybe they are even demonstrably wrong. But, it is not circular--and it is the kind of history that happens all the time, and for good reason. Sometimes, trustworthy events really are recorded in only one source. That very well may not be true for the gospels. Maybe finding history in it really isn't the best way to go about making the best sense of it. But it is not circular. A circular argument is where we assume our conclusions, not when we derive our conclusions from the evidence, however untrustworthy the evidence may be, however inappropriate the argument may be.

A letter written from a soldier to his family records that the leadership made a few particular flubs in his fight against an Indian tribe. This is the only historical source that records these events. Some people think that it is wrong to trust the claims contained within this single letter. Would it be appropriate for them to say that the argument for trusting the claims is circular?

ApostateAbe

We are on the same page on the point of circularity, so thank you.

dog-on

Ah, I was not referring to the specific construct in the post, I was answering the general question you asked regarding why your arguments are viewed as circular.