I'd like to say that I'm disappointed with Brian Trafford's (Nomad's) haggling over the details of Earl Doherty's methods. I haven't seen him try to show that Jesus Christ is as historical as (say) Julius Caesar. One way to do that would be to compare how Julius Caesar is described to how Jesus Christ is described.

Let's see what Julius Caesar would seem like if he was described the way that Jesus Christ was described. The first documents on him would picture him as one of the Gods, and then they'd be followed by some hagiographies nearly a century after his death. Hagiographies in which some earlier Roman leader tried to kill him as a baby to keep him from fulfilling his destiny as rightful ruler of Rome, and in which he grew up in a far corner of Italy and conquered distant lands before returning home to overthrow some usurpers and to be acclaimed as Rome's true leader. Hagiographies that contain not only lots of miracles, but also gross plagiarism, blatant inconsistencies, and efforts to turn collections of sayings into narratives.

Number 2 is ridiculous for a number of reasons Toto. But perhaps the biggest is because theists don't share the same view of the state of evidence for the historical Jesus.

How can you say that theists are always wrong about the state of the evidence of the historical Jesus when theists have very different ideas about the state of the evidence themselves? Just between Bede, Nomad, and myself there is a spectrum of differences. Between scholars like Luke T. Johnson and N.T. Wright there is a big gap about how they evaluate the state of the evidence.

You mean the Interpolation in Scripture thread in which you said that textual criticism is not a science at all? My reading shows you claiming that I am biased (big surprise, and I have never denied this, so I wonder what the point was), but you certainly did not demonstrate that I misused my sources.

You mean the Review of the Bible Unearthed thread in which I exposed the laughable claim by Carrier that "First, Dever attacks the book for saying nothing new, yet he cites not even a single book aimed at "general readers" that advances a complete synthetic history of Israel based on key archaeology completed since the 1990's. There is none."

Worse yet, you challenged me when I offered the title of one such book Who Wrote the Bible? (1997) and Ish offered another Archaeology and the Old Testament by Alfred J. Hoerth (1998). You even had to retract your statement that I was wrong on my claim, so I would have thought that you would have remembered it.

Or perhaps you are talking about Carrier's equally lame argument that "First, books for laymen rarely have footnotes or endnotes. Dever is betraying his elitism again, or else his ignorance of what non-scholars like to read."

If this is your idea of showing that my sources do not support my claims, then I feel for you Toto. I encourage the readers here to pursue the threads, and decide for themselves if I cannot back up my claims.

Well, you have 88 threads to choose from on this forum alone Toto. If you can find any actual examples where I have "fudged" my sources, then please do so. Given 1480+ posts to choose from you should be able to find something.

Brian (Nomad)

Earl/Philip

I am not interested in debating you again, at length on your tortured semantics. Suffice to say that since you do not think that there is a problem with Earl Doherty relying upon his own authority to provide his Greek translations, I would say that you have reached a new low in your expectation for evidentiary supports. I must admit, however, the willingness of such hardened sceptics to allow ANYONE to rely on their own authority to support their arguments and definitions is truly enlightening. I would have never expected such a thing on these boards.

And as for your wanting to step into the (not yet engaged) discussion on Crossan's arguments about Johannine dependence on Mark, reread your own quote please:



I put the relevant passage in bold so that you could find it more easily.

As for its significance to the discussion with Earl Doherty, we will get there. We will quickly learn why Doherty is not going to want to talk about early sources like the Passion Narrative (which is what he claims he was talking about in his last post. Do try to read these things Philip).

So, on that note, patience everyone, it is still early in the discussion, and it is very important (in my view) to lay some of the groundwork up front before getting to the details. I promise though, we will get there.

Brian (Nomad)

Brian,

As a general remark, which I have made before, I think your habit of snipping up my posts and responding to every paragraph separately isn’t always the easiest way to come to the heart of the matter. My lines of reasoning often span a number of paragraphs, and it would be better if you could reply to the gist of the argument rather than to individual sentences and paragraphs one by one.

In this case, my reasoning started off with the observation that Christians will have a serious problem in even considering the conclusion that Jesus might be mythical. You respond to this as follows:
Now, if you had replied to my argument in full, rather than just the first bit of it, you could have saved yourself the trouble, because a bit further in my post I say:
See? I know that there are non-Christians who have a great interest in the question of Jesus’ historicity! Moreover, saying that a Christian has probably more at stake in this issue than your average non-Christian, and may therefore be affected by his bias, does not equate to saying that there are no non-Christians who agree that Jesus is historical. I am quite prepared to believe this (backed up by my little poll, that showed that many sceptics here are inclined to say ‘probably yes’ to this question).

The point, in case you missed it, is that there is a basic asymmetry at play: a Christian cannot conclude that Jesus is a myth without abandoning his belief, but a non-Christian may very well conclude that Jesus was a real person without having to compromise his worldview, whatever that may be, one little bit. This is why I wonder if there is a point debating this with a Christian. A debate between two non-Christians (and this could be anyone, Jew, Muslim, atheist or what-have-you) on the historicity of Jesus has, undoubtedly, a greater chance of being unaffected by biases than one involving Christians.

Having said this, please do not feel discouraged in your debate with ED! I, and I am sure many with me, look forward to your arguments, because you undoubtedly possess a great knowledge on the background of this issue, and we are always keen to learn a bit more

Next, you re-introduce your comparison between literal fundamentalists and Jesus-mythers. Brian, I’m sorry to be blunt, but you are begging the question in a colossal way . The whole point of your debate with ED is to clarify to what extent his position is supported by the facts, not to dismiss him from the outset! To you, it may be a settled question. To many others on this board, it is not – and don’t expect us to go along with your verdict before you have put a heck of a lot more work into it. Please do us a favour and keep these kind of comparisons out of the discussion, at least until the debate is over – at which point you may find us agreeing with you, or not, as the case may be. Your continuous attempts to cast ED and his thought processes in a dubious light won’t do your position much good in the eyes of the undecided sceptics on this board. Just in case you forgot, Nomad, many of the Secular Web participants have exactly the same doubts about your own reasoning as you display here about Earl’s.

Oh come on now, of course this is not an appeal to authority. Where do you think the ‘experts’ got their own ideas from in the first place? By quoting earlier authorities, who in turn quoted still earlier authorities, and so on and on? Hardly likely! We wouldn’t be doing much creative scientific work if one isn’t allowed to propose alternative hypotheses over and above what others, expert or not, have declared to be the final answer.

Has it ever occurred to you that the best experts are those who set their own mind to work to independently evaluate and interpret the data? Just reading a lot of others doesn’t make one automatically an expert – having an independent, creative mind, and laying connections where none were laid before, is indispensable to achieving anything near ‘expert’ status in science, history or otherwise. Earl Doherty is perfectly free to propose anything he wants – even if it flies squarely in the face of the whole NT scholarship. We will listen to him as long as we think his arguments are halfway decent. It is up to him, in this particular debate, to demonstrate to us that they are. And it is up to you to convince us that they are not.

Bugger the experts, let’s see some of the data, for goodness sake!

fG

Bede

fG,

Are you English, by any chance?

I must agree with your sentiments if not your literal advice and also look forward to when Nomad and Doherty move on to the meat and drink arguments.

B

And I'd like to add to that Julius Caesar "biography" something about how his biological father had been a god.

Now for more serious things. Lance seems to me to be disappointingly unsystematic about how much of Jesus Christ's supposed career would have been recorded by others. I have tried to be more systematic. So we ought to ask about the events in the Gospels: which others would have perceived them, and which others would have thought them worth recording.

Much of JC's career would only have been apparent over a very limited area, and given what survives of Greco-Roman history, it is unlikely that some independent chronicler had been at the site. There is a partial exception, and that is Jerusalem, which is a fairly central location. Jesus Christ had had big crowds of both supporters and enemies there, he drove those moneychangers out of the Temple, and Pontius Pilate himself got involved with deciding his fate. And all of these were *very* newsworthy. However, the historian who is closest in space and time, Josephus, says nothing, though he does describe some other self-styled prophets in rather gory detail. Including one who claimed to be able to knock down the walls of Jerusalem by saying one word, and who got hordes of followers who only became doubtful when the Roman army massacred many of them.

However, there are a few really spectacular miracles. Those of his birth in Matthew involve a miraculous star which was followed by three astrologers and a massacre in the Jerusalem area of baby boys. Here again, Josephus is silent, though he does describe other unflattering things about King Herod, such as his murdering members of his family out of fear that they would overthrow him. And there were other eastern-Mediterranean historians who might have seen that star, but who did not.

And the miracles at the end of Matthew are also spectacular: big earthquakes, the sky getting dark in the middle of daytime, and the dead walking the streets. Here again, Josephus is silent, and other historians would have noticed the earthquakes and the darkness.

Ha! No, I'm not, but I've lived long enough in the UK to pick up some of the vernacular

fG

Comments to Earl Doherty and Brian Trafford

First of all, I will say that if Earl is going to use his own translations of the Greek to prove his points, then he needs to be ready to defend them. The Greek words have particular meaning, and this should be reflected in the English translations proposed by either side. If Greek or English translations of the Greek will be used in this debate, I suggest using a very literal, word-for-word translation (possibly Young's Literal translation) and elaborating on any figurative aspects as necessary.

Second, Brian addresed this next quote from Earl, but I wanted to go into a little more detail and ask a question.

I was glad to see how alert Brian was in noticing this.

Regardless, to be fair, I feel I must first quickly point out that Brian, in his response, accidentally left out the Greek article tas which goes in between kata and graphas.

The Greek of both verses (3 & 4) contain the phrase given by Earl as kata tas graphas. As Brian pointed out, most popular translations read "according to the scriptures" or "in accordance with the scriptures".

In addition to the translations Brian listed (NIV, KJV, NASB, Darby, and NET), there are others that read the same:

• (ASV) Amercan Standard Version
• (DRA) The Douay-Rheims American Edition
• (NJB) New Jerusalem Bible
• (NKJV) New King James Version
• (NRSV) New Revised Standard Version
• (RSV) Revised Standard Version
• (RWB) Revised Webster Update
• (WEB) The Webster Bible
• (YLT) Young's Literal Translation

As a matter of fact, other languages also read the same:

• The Latin Vulgate (VUL) reads secundum scripturas, or "according to the scriptures".
• The French Nouvelle Edition Geneve (NEG) reads selon les Écritures, or "according to the scriptures".
• The Spanish Reina Valera Update (RVA) reads conforme a las Escrituras, or "in accordance with the scriptures".
• The German Revidierte Elberfelder (ELB) reads nach den Schriften, or "according to the scriptures".

Where is the "traditional" phrase mentioned by Earl as "in fulfillment of the scriptures" found? Certainly not in the most popularly read versions of the Bible.

Next, Earl tells us that he has challeged scholars competent in Koine Greek with his "critical" translation of kata tas graphas, "as the scriptures tell us", and that he's had no takers. I'm not sure I see his translation as a problem, and similar paraphrases are used in the New Living Translation ("just as the Scriptures said") and in The Bible in Basic English ("as it says in the writings"). However, the reader should beware that this is not an accurate literal translation of the Greek; it is a paraphrase.

Let's break down Earl's translation into its parts: "as [they] tell us" and "the scriptures". He is translating tas graphas as "the scriptures" which is correct, but he seems to be equating "as [they] tell us" with kata which is questionable at best.

The Greek word kata is "a preposition denoting motion or diffusion or direction from the higher to the lower" (Thayer's Greek/English Lexicon). This "motion" from "the higher to the lower" is the underlying concept behind the word. When joined with the accusative, as it is in this case, it denotes reference or relation. Therefore, the English words "from", "down from", and "according to" are much more accurate.

As a matter of fact, kata is used in the "titles" of many ancient manuscripts. Such as in this picture of p75 where you can see the end of the gospel of Luke marked with EUAGGELION KATA LUKAN, which simply means "gospel according to Luke", and slightly below this is the beginning of the gospel of John marked with EUAGGELION KATA IOANEN, simply "gospel according to John". Very straightforward and literal.

If "as [they] tell us" was intended, then the author would have used the appropriate forms of "to tell/to say" such as eipon or lego and would have the appropriate pronoun for "us", probably hemin. Again, Earl's translation works only as a paraphrase and does not literally reflect the Greek text, though it may convey the general idea.

Finally, Earl says that his "alternate meaning" for this phrase in 1 Cor. 15:3 is a "critical translation" in his "position", so I don't think that Brian's response is a mere "quibble".

Since "fulfillment" does not seem to be a problem in these "critical" verses, was there another verse of which Earl was thinking?

Ish


[This message has been edited by Ish (edited May 11, 2001).]

I get this complaint a lot from sceptics fG, and allow me to explain why I do this quite a bit.

My experience has taught me that an argument or a belief is like a pyramid, or a wall, in which each new brick (argument) is resting on and dependent on one that was laid down before it. Thus, when I see a faulty assumption or line of reasoning being developed then I point out first how the argument breaks down early, and thus how each of the following dependent arguments can no longer be left to stand on their own unsupported.

I understood that you were willing to grant that both Christians and non-Christians have biases, what I deny is that the biases of the Christian preclude the possibility of solid inquiry into the historical Jesus. One of the great appeals of Christianity to me personally is that it alone depends on specific historical events and claims being true. If they are not true, then Christianity must be abandoned, and I understand that. Interestingly, so did Paul, so I guess our awareness of the unique vulnerability (and therefore unique strength) in my view, of Christianity, is that it has always been prepared to stand or fall on the truth of specific historical claims.

One can decide that Buddha never existed and be Buddhist. One need not believe in any specific individual in history to be Hindu. I do not think that even Jews (at least the Reformed kind) insist that one believe in an historical Moses or Isaac or David and still be a Jew.

Muslims depend on the historicity and reliability of the Qu'ran, but except for Mohammed's authorship of this book (hardly a very miraculous claim on the face of it), I do not think that they demand acceptance of any of his miracles to be a Muslim.

My broader point in my response was to show the basic fallacy in equating a bias on the part of Christians to believe in Jesus with it somehow affecting our judgement or evaluation of the evidence. Clearly Christians have investigated the evidence for Jesus, and they have reached the same conclusions as have non-Christians. Jesus existed. So please do not cast aspersions on Christian sources mearly because they are Christians.

This is why I gave you the example of the atheist debating the existence of God. If the atheists concludes that God does actually exist, then he must abandon his world view. Does this truth mean that it is pointless to debate the existence of God with an atheist? I think it is well worthwhile, especially as it will give us a good insight into how much the specific atheist has thought about the question.

Just FYI, a Muslim cannot deny the existence of Jesus without denying the veracity of the Qu'ran. Since they treat this book as the inerrant word of God, they cannot do this.

I am far from discouraged fG, but thanks. What has surprised me, however, is the willingness of the sceptics here to give Doherty a free pass on his non-use of sources and experts, especially in things like how to translate Koine Greek. Since I am compelled to rely on experts and sources for my definitions, the impression I am getting here is that Doherty's definitions will be given more credence than will my own. From my point of view this is completely daft, but I do not know how (beyond merely stating what I consider to be the obvious) to convince others that dictionaries are more reliable than a person with an agenda in giving reliable translations.

I have not dismissed Doherty from the outset. What I have done is given an analogy of how his theory drives his findings and presentation of the evidence. He literally reads history backwards, beginning with the assumption that the NT does not talk about an historical Jesus (outside of the Gospels and Acts), and then makes the evidence fit his theory, largely by means of rationalizations and ideosyncratic definitions, coupled with a broad based poisoning of the well against experts that will tear his arguments to pieces.

I see the same thing from fundamentalists as they try to explain how every part of the Bible is literally true, and that it contains absolutely no contradictions or errors. The reasoning methods are identical, and the results are just as predictable. The fundamentalists and mythers only succeed in convincing themselves about the truth of their beliefs, and consider those that disagree with them to be hopelessly biased.

I do not expect you to accept my opinions before I state my case, but I also will not conceal how much credence I give to these ideas.

This was not my point. Doherty is going to rely very heavily on his own authority and qualifications to define and translate the Bible Greek. If he was a professor of Koine Greek at an established university, he might be allowed to get away with this. Since we still do not know what his level of competence in Koine Greek happens to be (and my guess is that he will not tell us), then I do not know how to resolve this issue beyond pointing out that every other authority on Koine Greek thinks that he is wrong.

At that point should we say that he may still be right? For me, I do not know how we could do this. Can you imagine anyone getting away with this if they were translating anything else?

Out of curiousity, do you think that it is alright to base an argument on the accuracy of a translation of the Bible given by Joseph Smith?

You are still making a basic fallacy here fG. You continue to equate the findings within hard sciences that study nature, and within which experiments conducted by anyone can produce the same results as those of any other with the theories presented in the sciences of the humanities like history.

I know of no instance where any scholar would accept the arguments presented by someone without seeing any evidence of independent supports. After all, if the only evidence allowed in the discussion is preselected by the proponent of the new theory, then how can we hope to test his theory?

Umm... yes, this has occurred to me. Thanks.

Question: given what you have just said, how do you decide if the "expert" is credible? Is there an objective standard we can use that would be acceptable to you?

We will get there shortly, I promise. But if we are to give equal credence to everyone with an opinion on the matter, then we are not likely to learn anything much here. Democracy may be the best way to choose a government, but it certainly is not the best way to study history, and decide what is true from our past, and what is not.

Brian (Nomad)

[This message has been edited by Brian Trafford (edited May 11, 2001).]