spin

There is a problem of terminology here on the forum that I sometimes rail against. There are theories in circulation that see Jesus as fictional, for example made up by the Romans with the help of Josephus. I forget Carotta's variation at the mo'. For them there was an intentionality of invention in the construction of their Jesuses. Jesus was a fictional character for them. The mythicists have various approaches, some seeing an agglomeration of mythical ideas, others a non-consciously driven evolution of a few Jewish notions around the word of god/wisdom personified. This is why I tend to call one Jesus "mythical" and another "fictional".

Of course, there are those who use "mythical" to mean what you might by "fictional". And the distinction is lost through loose language.

One that historicists have difficulty with is the notion of a "historical Jesus" as a Jesus individuated through historical methodology. This is different from the notion of Jesus being real in that there needs to be historical evidence for a "historical Jesus". I frequently say that Jesus is not historical without implying Jesus was not real (which people object to) and others frequently confuse issues by saying that ancient people believed Jesus was historical, when almost no ancient person had a notion of historiography. It would be clearer if they said they believed Jesus was real. But saying someone is "historical" seems more substantial than saying they are "real".

Many people wonder wtf I'm talking about.

rlogan

That's pretty clear even to the junior varsity here. When you say "real", it obviously can't be the gospel Jesus. And where you have left it (unknown) is admittedly all we can do with it. Because there is no evidence.

What most of the alleged "historicists" are doing is eliminating everything from the gospel Jesus that serves to falsify existence, like the miracles. The deceit is then replacing the now-empty pages with something no text testifies to: A preacher who gathered enough of a following perhaps to become a threat to the secular authority to warrant crucifixion. No Biblical text tells that story. No non-Biblical text (eg works of Josephus) testifies to such a thing despite chronicles of a couple dozen personages by the name of Jesus in that time. There is zero Christianity in this fabrication because rising on the third day is the absolute core of the entire religion. Without it, there is no Christianity.

So it is worse than non-historical. It is a methodology expressly dedicated to the postulation of something that cannot be falsified, and an absolute refusal to look into the existing historical record as a means of actually finding real Jesus characters that may have inspired the Biblical story. (Or rather, since none fill the bill, to ignore the real ones in favor of the non-falsifiable fabrication.) It is a Jesus that is not Christian.

What I am curious about though is that we do see very clearly where the new testament story comes from, namely bald-faced hijacking of Isaiah and other Hebrew text passages to a degree exacting enough to reveal it is the Septuigint version. To me, that is very powerful evidence of the historical Jesus, meaning the history shouldn't be viewed as a chronicle of a real person but rather a textual history: the "Historical Jesus" is right here in front of us, in the pages of the Hebrew text, but unmercifully quote-mined and midrashed to the point where he is pretty objectionable to the Hebrew faith. No real person is even relevant to this textual history. Christianity needed no real person for its traditions and faith. However, it very badly needed "credentials", or a pedigree as it were. They couldn't just invent a new religion wholesale and the early apologists are emphatic that Chrisitanity was not so invented.

My curiosity is why you leave it at "we have no evidence for a real Jesus" instead of an emphasis on what evidence we DO have, which is a textual history rather than a chronicle of historical events. The text even tells us where it came from (saying "as it is written").To me, this is the most exciting historical detective work because the author of the earliest Gospel, Mark, didn't know his butt from a hole in the ground geographically in Judea and the author of the original Pauline letters didn't give a fig about historical chronicling. These different representations of Christ are matters of religious theory, not matters of calendar events being recorded.

So why not make the step to say that it is neither a real nor historical person that is the subject of Christianity. No real or historical person does what Christianity needs him to do. The only thing that makes it Christianity is what is obtained from the Hebrew Bible.

spin

You may say the above as you are doing more than analysis of what can be said about the history. All I'd conclude is that a historical figure behind the central one of the gospels cannot be shown. That doesn't mean that that figure was not real.

The purpose of the post you responded to was to clarify the terms in play in the discussion of Jesus so that useful meanings and distinctions in that discussion are not lost.

Would this be the case if you only had the gospel of Thomas? No. There is more in the gospels than midrash on the Hebrew bible. Beyond the sort of stuff in Thomas you've got an itinerant preacher on the loose. This could just be frame story for the religious content, but need not be.

There is an underlying figure that survives the crud removal process, whose existence is not jusatified by the fact that there is something acceptable beyond the crud. It does not mean though that that figure was not real. We hit a well-known wall in the study of history, the lack of useful resources that constitutes the black hole of history.

As the figure in question is not politically significant enough to worry about, ie he did not interact in such a way as to alter anything directly in the past, we will probably never get beyond this impasse and his historicity will remain unreachable. In other words he can currently be forgotten about in history, despite the fact that a movement has sprung up advocating salvation through belief in him. The existence of such movements are no proof for the existence of what they believe in. They are proof for the longevity of the belief.

You're running off the field with the term "historical Jesus".

There's some notion of a guided creation of a religion here that I doubt would represent the ancient reality.

What we are dealing with in these christian materials is a tradition that is derived from earlier traditions such that it has formed its own branch and therefore a life of its own. Traditions absorb memes as they are handed down; they are honed to the exigencies of the moment in each passing along. Those tradents doing the passing accept the tradition for what it is and in passing alters it. Those memes absorbed may or may not be directly related to real events and people. We cannot pick through a tradition and decide solely within that analysis, ie no external evidence considered, that a meme has a real world basis or not, though the tradent accepts the veracity of the tradition. All memes present themselves as parts of the tradition impervious to separations of real and unreal, as there are no internal referents to allow it. Tradition is beyond such analysis, unless we have external pegs to hang it on. With the earliest christian tradition we don't have such pegs.

I wasn't talking about the same things as you have interest in. My understanding of biblical studies is one of text analysis.

That isn't all the text, as I've indicated above.

That could be so.

The conclusion is a false over-generalization. Yet the falseness of the conclusion doesn't support any counter-claim. The Jesus that historicists derive certainly are little help for the christian religion. There has been a certain parting of the ways between parts of biblical studies academia and the faith.

I'll just stick with those distinctions I was making in the post you responded to as a means of providing a working vocabulary to discuss the issues we are dealing with.

ficino

I am very interested in this distinction between a "real" Jesus and a "historical" Jesus, which Spin has put forward. I haven't been active on here for some years, so as a relative newbie I don't want to introduce a thread on definitions if there has been one already. Has there been? If not, let's start a new thread.

I think it's important, because a quick Google search already reveals confusion. For example, I find the words "the historical Jesus, the flesh-and-blood preacher of ancient Israel executed by the Romans" here:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...us/tikkun.html

The Wikipedia article on "historical Jesus" displays logical confusion in its first paragraph when it says that the term refers to scholarly reconstructions of portraits of the life of Jesus of Nazareth and then adds that these reconstructions "are distinct from the question of the existence of Jesus." I think I understand that the author is making a distinction like that which Spin made, but it muddies the waters to distinguish some "reconstructions" from a "question." And so on.

I work on ancient philosophy, and in my acquaintance, the terms "historical Socrates" and "flesh-and-blood Socrates" are used pretty much interchangeably - e.g. by Debra Nails in her article on Socrates in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I know her; maybe I'll ask her whether she has a view on these two terms and their meanings and reference.

Spin, I see you speak above of how Jesus' "existence is not justified" by the removal of "crud" from the tradition - you mean his existence is not established, or conclusions that he existed are not justified, no? In the next paragraph you say that probably "his historicity will remain unreachable." Does that statement have different semantic value from something like "application of historical methods will not yield any conclusions about whether there was such a flesh-and-blood person" vel sim.?

In other words, are we dealing with a meaning vs. reference problem? I should think that a historical reconstruction of Jesus must purport to present facts about the flesh-and-blood chap in order to call itself "historical."

Edited to add: or does the term "historical Jesus" refer to a given portrait of a life, which is fleshed out with some detail and coherence, as opposed to the term, "the real (or flesh-and-blood) Jesus," which refers to a purported personage about whom only a few things must be able to be asserted (a name, location, time period, some actions)?

Confused but intrigued, F

spin

That article will be heartland christian space on Wiki. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for useful perceptions of the terms when they have become purely ideological. The term "historical Jesus" is gaining an inseparable status, ie the two words together have established a significance not derived by the individual words alone. This is a bit like "Jesus Christ" in early days. "Christ" was once a noun that meant "anointed", but now it is part of the name "Jesus Christ", which pulls dogma in its train, "lord and savior".

I've tried to keep Wiki articles concerning religious topics above board, but there has been so much nonsense put into print that can be used as "evidence" for the christian views purveyed and there are enough christians actively working on Wiki to guarantee the leverage to determine arbitrage on content.

A little looseness of terminology in Wiki would be the least of my worries.

There is an unstated assumption in this reductive method: there is something genuine to be found in the tradition if all the stuff that is unacceptable is removed. The assumption is without foundation. The best you could say with such a methodology is that once you remove the impossible you're left with the possible... oh, and you're left with demonstrating that the possible has some modicum of veracity.

This is the same methodology employed in the rehabilitation of the Testimonium Flavianum. If we get rid of the unacceptable bits your left with the original material. Get rid of "if it be lawful to call him a man", "he was the christ" and the miracle of the cross. Everything else is good, isn't it.

No.

The problem as I see it is that "real" is an ontological statement, whereas "historical" is epistemological. "Real" is a claim about what is, while "historical" is a claim about how we know what is. If we say that Jesus is historical we indicate we have a way of knowing he was real.

Those people who say Jesus is historical are kidding themselves--and my statement in no way reflects on whether Jesus was real or not. I am merely saying that they don't have a way of knowing he was real.

Grog

In my opinion this question deserves a thread of its own. This question also interests me, which is why I try to clarify that I am talking about the man from Nazareth who was crucified by Pilate (allegedly). I received a drubbing on this from spin, but my approach was probably impertinent. I am on the positivist side on this question...if there is no reliable evidence for the real Jesus, then presupposing existence is not supportable. Almost all NT scholars approach the material with the presupposition that a real Jesus existed. Reconstructions of the historical Jesuss depend on this assumption.

I fixed some typos in this. I initially wrote it standing in line for my chicken bento.

ficino

Great, I think so, too. In fact, I already started trying to write an initial post but got bogged down in too much verbiage. If you'd like to start a new thread, please do so. In the meantime, I'll see whether I can reduce my thoughts to something of reasonable length and start a thread if neither of you has done so.

Cheers, F

Grog

I would like to leave that to spin, if he's willing. Or if one of the rulers of this world could make it so starting with spin's post, then that might be best.

ficino

I'll start by asking Spin, is your distinction between the terms "real Jesus" and "historical Jesus" one that is observed in some publications in the field, or is it one that you recommend, or would recommend, to the academy? I ask this because, as I said in #1 above, I find that "historical Jesus" seems to be used interchangeably with "real" or "flesh-and-blood Jesus" elsewhere. Here's another example:

(http://depts.drew.edu/jhc/rpltj.html)

Robert Price says "historical research cannot yield a definite portrait of the historical Jesus." Here he seems to use "historical Jesus" in a way that could be replaced by "real Jesus." He goes on in the next paragraph to speak of "trying to build a plausible, historical Jesus construct out of elusive and shadowy evidence," as though he means a construct of the life of the actual man - not as though he means that the "Jesus" denoted by "historical Jesus" is itself a construct.

In #1 above I also mentioned that Debra Nails in her Stanford Enc. of Philosophy article on Socrates (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socrates/) goes from speaking of "the historical Socrates" to "the 'real' Socrates" in the same paragraph. Likewise, Andreas Patzer (I translate from the German) speaks so about "the famous Socratic Problem: How from the fictional tradition about Socrates can we recover the historical Socrates, to whom the former owes its existence first and last?" (p. 1; see link:
https://www.google.com/search?q=patz...rome&ie=UTF-8)

So it seems to me that usage, at any rate, shows that terms like "real Jesus" are used in academia with the same reference as terms like "historical Jesus." Whether or not they should be so used is a next question to move on to. I'd welcome some citations of works in which your distinction betw "real" and "historical" Jesus is replicated or even discussed head-on. If no one has confronted the issue in print, perhaps at some point you'd want to do so.

I have further questions, but perhaps we could start here just with more examples of current usage.

Cheers, Ficino

spin

Consider the following table. It features four different possibilities that help to show the relation between historicity and reality.

From the table we can see that there is a simple correlation between (sufficient) positive evidence and historicity. Further, we can say if something is historical it is/was real, but we cannot say that if something is not historical it is not real. There is no good correlation. We only ever have partial access to the past so we will never have sufficient evidence for most things.

We can certainly say that something (determined to be) historical is something (shown to be) real.

Looking at the Stanford Enc.:

So thorny is the difficulty of distinguishing the historical Socrates from the Socrateses of the authors of the texts in which he appears and, moreover, from the Socrateses of scores of later interpreters

I'd guess that the notion in "historical Socrates" is of a Socrates already determined as historical, ie there is already sufficient evidence to sustain the issue. That means that the writer may flit a little between the notion of "historical Socrates" and "real Socrates" as the first entails the second. But the usage above is unclear because it is comparing one Socrates with other Socrateses which are eisegetical in nature, ie the real one and the interpreted ones. It seems that there was a historical Socrates, which entails that there was a real Socrates, and what we can say about this historical Socrates is clouded by the inability to distinguish his characteristics due to the nature of the available evidence from the elaborated sources.

As to Price, he talks of Johnson, who

admits that historical research cannot yield a definite portrait of the historical Jesus.

This is working from Johnson's ideas and he assumes historicity. Then Price talks of

a plausible, historical Jesus construct

This is hedging his meanings somewhat. One might have to ask Price what he means by "historical Jesus construct". And finally he offers

Johnson has no better theory of the historical Jesus to offer than that of...

Price doesn't seem to have committed himself on the terminology. He certainly has trouble with it, adding "construct" and "theory" to qualify it. It may just be that there is a "real Jesus" behind it.

The positive statement is no real problem for understanding, as "historical Jesus" entails "real Jesus". It is the negative that is the real problem. As an analogy, you might consider "he must do it" to convey the same meaning as "he has to do it", but in the negative, "he must not do it" and "he doesn't have to do it" go their separate ways in significance.