spin

The placement of the story which Nazara in Lk is purely a Lucan effort, one in which the author chose to move his synoptic source material from its original unnamed location well into the gospel, as found in Mk 6 & Mt 13, ie the rejection story is part of the earlier layers of the gospel material, Lk has moved it for redactional intervention. At the same time the author has applied the name Nazara to the anonymous town.

This name "Nazara" was available separately to the redactors of both Mt and Lk, but not earlier, as it appears only in those texts' individual efforts -- and the relocation of the hometown rejection by Lk along with its naming, although the material is synoptic in nature, is sign of that individual effort.

Another sign of that effort is that the text refers "the things you did in Capernaum" 4:23 (a Lucan redactional insertion), as though those things had already been mentioned, but, in fact, that first reference to Capernaum is still in situ at 4:31 with its first reference qualification of "a city in Galilee", ie just after the rejection story. This anachronism is a clear sign of the lateness of the relocation of the rejection passage, as it was in its original location when the redactor added the anaphorical reference.

It is only after an initial period marked by the use of Nazara (and I have said elsewhere that Mt 2:23 also has early witness for Nazara) that the name Nazareth appears in the gospels, eg in Lk's birth narrative or Mt 21:11 (a nice case of scribal intervention). In fact in the synoptic gospels and putting aside the birth narratives, the name Nazara is better attested than Nazareth, ie 2 to 1 (literally). This makes the form Nazareth purely secondary in nature, not in the synoptic core material, nor in the "Q" material, nor even in the first redactional layer of either Mt & Lk.


spin

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I said,

To clarify, there is also the mention of Nazareth in Mk 1:9, which is specifically the verse which I have been contesting, as a late addition (just as Mt 21:11 appears to be). This mention of Nazareth would make it 2 all. Still, rather uninspiring, isn't it?


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andrewcriddle

It may possibly be relevant (though IMHO I'm dubious) as to the original form of Nazareth that Julius Africanus as quoted by Eusebius in Ecclesiastical History Book 1 chapter 7 has the form Nazara Andrew Criddle

spin

Yes, thanks. There are a few interesting early indications for Nazara.

What exactly are you dubious about, Andrew, and why?


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andrewcriddle

Since the Context is an attempt by Julius Africanus to reconcile the genealogies in Matthew and Luke I am doubtful if the spelling of Nazareth here can be regarded as evidence of a tradition independent of the canonical Gospels.

Andrew Criddle

spin

I would never have thought independent from the gospels in his era. However, the fact that he uses Nazara instead of Nazareth, is certainly a testimony to the tradition that he knew or at least an authoritative tradition. This in itself is a kick in the bum to any Nazareth priority.


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As our dear Richard Carrier has had ages to deal with the problem that he has pooh-poohed regarding Nazareth, at this stage we can happily write off his musing in the area as simplistic and forgetable.


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Richard Carrier

Once again, let me preface the following with a warning: nothing that follows is meant to argue for my conclusions. I am here only summarizing why I believe what I do, without filling in all the reasons or addressing all the relevant issues in each case.

Who wrote those things? When? We have no idea. So these are even worse evidence than the Gospels, IMO. They could have been written post-legend, and thus if mythicism is true they could convey the same false belief exemplified (or at least fostered) by Luke's Gospel. Besides that, outside Luke-Acts, the only indisputably historicist reference is in 2 Peter. In fact, 2 Peter so explicitly denies following "myths" that methinks it protests too much--this reminds me so much of 3 Corinthians that it is hard to accept 2 Peter as having any greater authority than that (for those not in the know, 3 Cor. was apparently forged by later Christians who didn't think Paul was sufficiently orthodox in 1 and 2 Cor., so they made up a letter that had him clearly espousing what was then orthodox doctrine--I discuss this briefly in Empty Tomb--I believe 3 Cor. is still part of the NT canon in some Eastern sects). The fact that almost all scholars in fact agree that 2 Peter is a forgery simply clinches it for me--indeed, scholars largely agree that 2 Pet. wasn't even written by the same person who wrote 1 Peter (even if 1 Peter was also a forgery, as many scholars also believe).

So this brings us back to Luke. I believe it is much better than 50% (but not 100%) likely that the author of Luke-Acts believed Jesus was a historical person. I also believe (for a number of different reasons) that it is better than 50% that Luke wrote very near 100 AD (+/- 5 years). But even if Luke wrote c. 80 AD as most scholars think, I see no problem with someone already by that date having euhemerized the mythical Jesus. Contrary to modern Christian polemic, legends, even very fantastic legends, do grow that quickly--and we have in this case two catalysts, which make this case different from all others:

(1) The Neronian persecution and then the War, one right on top of the other, which could have so disrupted the Christian leadership as to increase dramatically the odds of later confusion or divergence from the original doctrine. And the fact that this does indeed appear to be a Dark Age for Christianity--with no documents from anyone about the church's history between 60 and 95--corroborates this conclusion: the oral tradition and hierarchy of control had probably been broken or substantially disrupted. Similar corroboration is provided by the literal explosion of new dogmas and sects of Christianity precisely then, when we expect tradition and hierarchy to have been substantially disrupted (around the end of the 1st century, growing to prominence and conflict in the 2nd century--even the orthodoxists date the origins of their enemies' movements to the late 1st century and some even to earlier than that). Paul already attests to the movement splintering into new gospels and dogmas even in his own day. After Nero and the War it could only have been worse.

(2) It was standard practice for mystery cults to employ an overtly historical or seemingly factual narrative as the founding story told to outsiders, which would then be "interpreted" as having solely mystical meaning only in private to "initiates" (and often there were stages, and you would learn more the higher up you got--Clement of Alexandria attests that Christianity was like this as of his day, and Paul's common use of mystery cult vocabulary, his explicit reference to secret doctrines, his avoidance of revealing secrets, and his ambiguous "beat around the bush" style of discourse all suggest it was already a fact in his time). If we combine this fact with the possibility that Nero and the War disrupted the church leadership, thus destroying many if not most of those who were "in on the secret," and leaving many sects on their own with only the historicizing narratives, the odds that these groups would innocently take the narratives as rote increases slightly.


The inability to date the book, or even to decisively identify clear evidence of historicity in it (e.g. the Gospels claim Peter was not "a witness of the sufferings of Christ" as 1 Pet. 5:1 claims, whereas 1 Pet. 1:11 says the Holy Spirit is what testified to the "sufferings of Christ," so 1 Pet. sounds like a mythicist document to me: the author of 1 Peter witnessed the sufferings not historically but by revelation--debatable, but precisely because it is debatable it is therefore not clear), these two facts leave it with so little weight that even if we considered it, I think it would have no notable effect on the math. That does mean authorship is an issue, but so is content, undatability, lack of provenance, etc. Of course it would be a dead letter if we could prove forgery, but the fact that we can't prove any actual Peter wrote it, much less "the" Peter, is alone sufficient to hugely reduce its weight as evidence. Add all the other issues and it is practically useless, IMO (except that, as I noted, its contents might seem to me more probable on H than ~H, which means this document actually hurts the historicist case more than helps it).

Luke is trickier. Luke clearly wants us to believe that he believes Jesus was historical--but is Luke writing for outsiders and thus doing a particularly good job of hiding the mystical meaning that he really intends to convey? His imitation of the Romulus narrative (with the Emmaus tale, for example, as well as the ascension) and his overtly symbolic nativity narrative (with its midrashic flair) suggests he is being sly in that way. But his overt pro-sarx rhetoric (going out of his way to deny "spiritual resurrection") and his failure to grasp obvious and crucial mystical meanings (like the meaning of the "built with hands" prophecy that I discuss in Empty Tomb) suggests Luke is out of the mythicist loop and thus really thinks he is writing history. I suspect at present that the Romulus motif comes from a now-lost mythicist source Luke was relying on, and mistook as history (just as he apparently mistook Mark as history), while the nativity is some "plausible fiction" that Luke cooked up starting with a minimal set of what he thought was historical data (or some scholars see Luke as also having a source here, and awkwardly melding it with another source on John the Baptist). Either way, Luke takes substantial liberties (most of his "history" looks like guesswork and the substitution of plausibility for fact), but that was actually the norm for ancient historiography (which is why the best historians of the day kept complaining about it), so we can't judge from that. So at present I conclude that probably Luke is a historicist.

Further supporting that conclusion for me is how very different Acts is from the Gospel of Luke.

Apart from the first three chapters, which clearly overlay the Gospel and thus serve as literary continuations from it that gradually also merge into the actual historical narrative of Acts, Acts is bizarrely silent on the historicity of Jesus--and I don't just mean silent, but almost in some cases blatantly mythicist. Paul's trial defense to Agrippa, for example, in the actual Greek is practically overtly mythicist, a point I bring out in my treatise against Holding (though I am not there arguing such a point). Likewise, the Letter of Claudius Lysias is extremely curious for making no mention whatever of Jesus (a problem so disturbing that later scribes tried to doctor it) or any relevant historical issues at all--to me such a letter seems only possible if there was no Jesus and the dispute was solely one of competing private revelations--which I explain again, though for different reasons, in my treatise against Holding. There are many other cases where we would expect historical back-references to appear in Acts but don't (Where is Joseph of Arimathea? Or Mary the mother of Jesus? Why is James never once called the brother of Jesus or any such relation ever mentioned? What happened to Pilate? Why does the empty tomb never become an issue or even gain any mention whatever? Why aren't the public miracles of Jesus' life and death ever discussed or debated or used as arguments, even at trial or among the public? They get only one vague reference in Peter's speech in Acts 3, but I have many other reasons to suspect Luke has reworked that speech to conform to and briefly summarize his Gospel, thus concluding his transition from that Gospel to the narrative of Acts). It is not that we are 100% certain to expect such things, but certainly we should expect some of them--so that we get none whatever is a problem for the historicist.

Some here already know that I believe Luke wrote Acts from a genuine historical core (which is not to be taken as saying that I assume Acts is reliable history), and one of the many reasons I believe that is that the miracles in Acts (after Acts 1, which is simply a continuation of the Gospel) are all mundane, and such as to all have natural explanations (even if Luke exaggerates a bit), which is a stark contrast with the miracles all throughout the Gospel of Luke. Since it is impossible for Luke to have known the difference between scientifically explicable miracles and scientifically inexplicable miracles (since none of the relevant science would have been known for thousands of years), the fact that Acts consistently stays on the one side and not the other argues for authenticity (of his sources--that Luke added, embellished, toyed with the narrative is still possible and in some cases I think evident). If we combine this fact with the above fact (that the speeches in Acts and its narrative content and the letter of Lysais and so on all seem bizarrely silent if historicity were true), I see Acts as actually providing more corroboration for mythicism than historicity.

Again, let me reiterate (since people tend to forget this) I am not here arguing for these conclusions. I'm just telling you what I have concluded and some hints as to why--without providing all the evidence and argument that persuaded me, and without addressing all the obvious objections one might raise, and so on.


No. I do not see this as clear at all.


The few cases in Paul where a historicist might pin his hopes are all problematic or vague for a number of reasons, and are doubly problematic for their scarcity. I do agree they need to be taken into account, though--as I mentioned in my Bayesian analysis, there are some things that are not entirely expected on H, even if H can explain them. Hence my P(E/H) is not 1. However, there are far more things that are unexpected on ~H and many of them are more problematic, thus whatever P(E/H) is on account of the evidence suggesting historicity like you might have in mind in Paul, P(E/~H) must necessarily be lower. I already made that point clear enough I think.

Thus, yes, I would certainly include in the list of things in E that are problematic for H certain things Paul said--or appears to have said. Sadly, we have a problem with doctoring--the epistles are all a mess, even the ones scholars agree are authentic (Romans, for example, was clearly cut up and rearranged or possibly consists of two letters merged together, and scholars believe the same of several other letters)--and that makes it hard work to rule out editing in some cases. At the very least, one must include the frequency of known interpolations and edits in the prior probability of any given verse being entirely authentic, and the frequency of doctrinally-motivated editing is unusually high for the NT, esp. the epistles, at least relative to, say, Homer or Arrian. Not that any of this allows excluding a verse on mere suspicion of revision, only that we have to do some work before ruling that out as improbable. The NT documents are not above suspicion in that regard. We've caught their hands in the cookie jar so many times in the NT that one is rightly hesitant to simply assume we can trust every verse in it.

In response to Rick Sumner, you are correct that it is Augustus who might rate inclusion in the 30% historical saviors, not Julius. I badly mispoke. I apologize for the huge gaffe! Also, you are right that I have in mind by "salvific godman" something more generic than might appear from the phrase (many different kinds of savior qualify, and one can be "son of god" in more than one sense). Hence, as I said, the category is not sufficient by itself. Countless people claimed or had assigned to them the title of Savior in some definite sense and were regarded as demigods or god's children. Hence one must combine that category with those who score high on Rank's table. The reason for the initial category is simply to exclude categorically irrelevant persons who otherwise clearly fall in the myth category (from entirely mythic persons, such as Aesop and Helen, to historical persons later mythicized, such as Cyrus and Joan of Arc).

But combining this with Rank's table, we get a narrowed category into which Jesus definitely falls in common company, and then the top fifteen candidates come out as follows: Oedipus, Theseus, Romulus, Heracles, Perseus, Jason (of the Argonauts), Bellerophon, Pelops, Asclepius, Dionysus, Apollo, Zeus, Joseph (the Patriarch), Moses, and Elijah (one can also find Asian and Germanic candidates that score as high as the latter few, as well as Arthur and Robin Hood, but I don't consider these because the socio-cultural contexts are too different to assume the frequencies carried over). Clearly, the higher you score, the less likely you are to be historical. Even the historicity of the last three (Joseph, Moses, and Elijah) are in serious question, and in fact no one who scores higher than 15th is definitely historical. But assuming the latter three are all historical persons (which I think assumes too much) and assuming Pelops and Heracles to be historical (the evidence for that is extremely poor, but at least there is some, in contrast with the others), that gives us 5/15, or 30%. Hence my ratio.

To be truly fair I could say Elijah and Pelops only count as 80% of a historical person each, to account for the probability (which is at least 1 in 5) that they are fictional, while Heracles, Moses and Joseph rank at most as 70% of a person (and these are generous estimates). That would give a result of .8 + .8 + .7 + .7 + .7 = 3.7, for 3.7/15 = 25%. But I am taking the broadest estimate, to allow for others who might fall on the table around 15th (whether at or slightly above or below, which might include Alexander and Augustus, but possibly also the Dioscuri and Osiris, etc.).

At any rate, one would have to marshal a complete list and run the math to see where the ratio comes out before arguing against my estimate. I welcome any effort to do that. But I think a proper formula must weight for rank. Since the higher one lies on the list apparently reduces probability of historicity, not all candidates count fully for a frequency analysis. A straight ratio among the top 30 candidates, for example, would not produce a correct prior probability for Jesus, because Jesus actually ranks very high (if you include him, he ranks third), and in that company the ratio of historicity is much lower than further down the table. I am not sure what the correct math would be. But just looking at my quick-and-dirty analysis from the top 15, even from a more complete analysis I predict the ratio will not stray very far from .3.

But again, you can run the same equation with your own personal estimate and see where you yourself presently stand, given what you know and believe so far. I think everyone should do that. It might be enlightening. For example, you might end up at a P(H) of .4, which would still make you a historicist, but would certainly qualify things a bit--for it would mean that your own knowledge and assumptions entail the belief that there was actually a 40% chance Jesus didn't exist. I suspect you would not take those odds to Vegas on a one-time bet. And that is a decidedly different ground to stand on than "I'm pretty sure Jesus existed."

To GakuseiDon, who says "There is no reason to believe that any 2nd century apologist didn't believe in a historical Jesus," I agree. Well, to be precise, there might be "a reason" to believe that, but I do not believe it is a sufficient reason. This is one reason why I limit myself to what he says in his book, which is a bit more restrained than what he has argued elsewhere. For example, his book does not say "all" but only addresses some (and I read him charitably--i.e. in the best light possible, without any knowledge of what he has argued anywhere else), and his book does not say they didn't know about the claim that there was a historical Jesus (an astonishing thing he has claimed to me since) and hence it does not exactly commit to a position on what they believed about that. In other words, whatever Doherty was thinking or intending to say, I took his book as making the case that they weren't much interested in the historical Jesus but interested in a mystical one known through revelation, who had a primarily cosmic role, which is IMO true (for those he discusses), but compatible (to my mind, but apparently not Doherty's) with their believing in a historical Jesus. This is just one of many major quarrels I have with Doherty. IMO, if we stick to his core argument, and ignore his wilder flights of fancy like this one, his case stands up much better.

TedM

I got it, and appreciate it.

Ok, thanks for filling me in some more on how you approach such documents.


It seems highly unlikely to me for Luke to be a historicist and Paul a mythicist given the connection between them. How do you account for this given the relatively short time between Jesus' alleged death and Luke's association with Paul?


In your reply to Don you wrote Couldn't the same case be made for Paul?


thanks again,

ted

Toto

By "Luke," Richard was referring to the author of the third gospel and Acts. There is no compelling reason to believe that these works were written by Luke the physician who was a companion of Paul. The only way of making that Luke the author is to assume that he wrote the gospel when he was in his later years, well after his association with Paul, and after evolving his theology in significant ways.