spin

I tell you what, Chris, you demonstrate from undated, unprovenanced texts that there was a Jesus. Or any other historical means at your disposal.

The assumption of existence is just as "defeating to scholarship, to skepticism, to rational inquiry." This is an issue that scholars needn't come down on either side of to do their jobs. But having come down on one side, as in the case of the status quo, you have no way of knowing that the assumptions you base on that unfounded decision have any validity.


spin

Chris Weimer

Upon engaging the "Jesus Quest" I never once assumed his existence. In fact, I was once in the mythicist camp, thinking Jesus was merely the product of Greek cults and Jewish extremism. This hasn't born out.

But assumption isn't necessarily wrong, either. In fact, we have to assume because the texts state quite clearly he existed. If we have evidence contrary, then we change our opinion, but until then, we still must assume thus. Likewise with other historical figures whose lives are obscure and where there is no archaeological evidence for them. Couldn't Lucretius be merely a metaphor to the Epicurean thought of his day? We have scant evidence of his existence - we know nothing about him that save that he wrote De Rerum Natura, and he is only mentioned by very few contemporaries - Cicero, Ovid - but nothing autobiographal until centuries after his alleged death with Jerome. For all we know, he could have been wholly invented by the Epicureans, and all the manuscripts we have that reference him are merely interpolations.

That's what we're dealing with when we speak of the Historical Anybody. Superficially, it's absurd, which is why there needs to be voluminous evidence against someone's existence. The possibility exists for both real and fictional, but when we have so many texts claiming a real person, especially in a context where it ultimately makes better sense, than we ought to on principle accept real. The texts claim that he was real - that he was recorded. Is there any good reason why we should not accept them at that? There has to be pretty good evidence why we shouldn't. To date, I haven't seen any. Doherty comes closest, but fails in his understanding of Paul.

Unless you apply this to every other historical figure whose situation matches that of Jesus, then it's a double standard. As it stands, we should affirm what we know of history.

Come again?

spin

Chris, you ignored my:

You wanted someone else to do what you are not prepared to do.

Does this mean that because your first hypothesis was wrong you should accept another?

Agreed. Assumptions aren't very useful by themselves.

We have other texts which state quite clearly Zeus and Hercules existed. Literary statements are not worth much per se. We need to interact with those statements to get anything out of them.

Well, you don't have any evidence against the people in Petronius's Satyricon, we must according to your logic assume they did. Your approach as stated seems pretty unhelpful to me.

Contemporary citation is pretty good in itself. What have you got for the other guy? I think you need a better analogy, besides does anyone care if Lucretius existed or not? Someone wrote De Rerum Natura, which is what interests us with the name Lucretius.

Christian exegesis has existed for centuries and is quite robust. What opportunity has this mythological camp had to develop such exegesis? Just because you're unhappy with the ability of explanatory power as it stands, does it mean you have to take some contrary position, not allowing its exponents the opportunity to develop that exegetical platform?

The claims are usually not comparable. I don't care about Lucretius. I care about the text. I don't really care about Josephus. I care about the texts attributed to him, which the ancients cite. These people in themselves are not historically important, though we can usually collocate them in a relatively precise era.

Can you do the same for the gospel writers? Can you be sure within 50 years of when the texts were written? Of course not. You don't Suetonius for primary historical information about the existence of the people he mentions. You use the coins and the epigraphy. Then you use Suetonius to flesh out the gaps.[/QUOTE]

Do the inclusions help you get my idea?


spin

Chris Weimer

I didn't ignore it, in fact, I have over multiple threads in multiple places have shown why I don't buy the Jesus Myth theory. First, no one has sufficiently dealt with Paul, who associates himself with the Pillars of Jesus movement. We have direct connection there. Secondly, because the gospel material had to come from somewhere. I don't buy into Michael Turton's theory that Mark wrote pure fiction either. The parallels are weak - methinks too much imagination is at play. So where did the Jesus tradition come from? I think the earliest strata of the gospels aligns very nicely with Paul's descriptions - a wholly Jewish Jesus who is pro-Judaism. Remember, we have James, a Brother of the Lord, a pillar, the central figure since Jesus has died, who is Jewish and emphasizes Judaism, and not Gentilism (i.e. circumcision and clean/unclean distinction).

Moreover, Paul talks in a language of Jesus having been born and died - and contra Doherty, he does not do so in a Platonic manner. Jesus isn't on some plain, he's human too. That much is evidenced by Doherty's struggle with flesh v. spirit dichotomy's, and probably the source of the kata sarkon confusion.

Quite an allegation. I am not permitted much time on the internet lately - you know why - and thus I don't feel obligated to go on and on in a single post what I've explained elsewhere. What little time I do have I'd rather devote to my real interests - the Classical world. The Historical Jesus plays a rather minor role in my overall studies, as I'm sure it is for you as well. If I understand correctly, you'd rather be digging in Israel and studying the DSS, no?

If the first hypothesis is wrong, then I should default to the status quo. And with further evidence, I reaffirm that I'm not merely blindly following the status quo (I never am) but that I have sufficient evidence to believe it to be factual.

You're absolutely right. We do need interaction with these texts. King Arthur, Siddhartha Gatauma, Lao Zi, Achilles. We need to find out if there's enough evidence to posit an historical figure behind the literary characters we know.

Maybe, maybe not. We certainly cannot rule it out. Upon studying Petronius, we do learn a bit - Petronius wrote satire; he was satirising most likely Nero. So we can eliminate that Petronius' characters are factual by means of genre. Mark is definitely not satire.

Is it? Is all we care about is what Lucretius wrote, and not who is he? I beg to differ - I'd like to extract from De Rerum Natura a sort of profile of the man Lucretius. It's virtually impossible, however, but that's besides the point.

I used Lucretius to show the absurdity of certain positions, like mountainman's, one that cannot be falsified. If everything is a conspiracy, then anything is permitted. Likewise, those positions that posit every facet of the gospels as Hellenic-Jewish midrash use the same logical fallacy. There is no interaction with the texts, because many outright deny the texts anything at all, immediately writing it off as unhistorical in any way, shape, or form. Not a good idea for any scholarship.

And perhaps the Egyptian is a better example? What evidence do we have of his existence? I'm sure I can find numerous examples, many significant, many not so, of people who have as much evidence for Jesus' existence yet are very rarely and only from crackpots denounced as fictitious. I'd posit the furor of Jesus mythicism from those who also would like to see Christianity be done away with. (And yes, I do know that the opposite is also true - many Christians wrongfully try to "prove" Jesus' existence as well, and I too accuse them of poor scholarship.)

Jesus mythicism has also been around for centuries. It's not so brand new. But again - why would I bother with it if it has not developed such a refined methodology and has weak evidence for it? I go where the evidence smells best, and in the mythicist camp, it stinks.

Mythicists have been doing this long before I entered the equation, and they'll be doing it afterwards. I was directly condemning aa5874's baseless assumption, which was lacking in evidence. That seems to be the norm around here - Jesus is myth and its a foregone conclusion to hell with the texts. If that's what mythicism brings to the table, than I will continue to deny it any rights to scholarship whatsoever.


Ah, perhaps here we differ. I care about Lucretius; I care about Josephus. Yes, I care about their texts too, but I care about them as people. I'm an historian - I want to know when did who do what where. I also would like to know why and how. Those are essential to me.

I do what I can. Since we don't have coins of Jesus until much after the texts were written about him, I have to rely on the texts for primary information. Who do you rely on for information about the Egpytian? And yes, actually, I believe myself competent enough to date Mark within a 50 year time frame. I don't see how it's relevant to the discussion, though?

I think I solidly responded to that idea already.

best regards,

Chris Weimer

PS - I'm not ignoring your PM, spin. I'll get to that soon.

spin

I missed them as I usually avoid the stuff.

Overinterpretation. He neither associates himself with the "so-called" pillars other than communicating with them, nor are they "the Pillars of Jesus movement".

Uh-huh.

So you don't believe in creatio ex nihilo either. Good. This is not an argument. All traditions had to come from somewhere, but they are usually too difficult to put an origin too. Remove the later strata of the stories and you lose anchorage in time.

Where did the infancy gospels come from? The Acts of Pilate? The correspondence between Paul and Seneca? Scratch another non-argument. Chris, you need not to supply only one answer to your speculations unless you have evidence for such answers.

And what does that capitalized epithet mean?

You must have a different copy of Galatians from me. Or else you're combining Acts and Galatians and other traditions to get something else.

Hercules comes back onto my TV screen. Flesh and blood. But really perceived as participating in this world?

You got that right. But, though I don't usually comment onthis stuff, I was a little taked aback by your stance.

You have already put yourseslf in opposition to the status quo. Why be so arbitrary as to pick and choose. Why not go the whole hog and accept it all?

Perhaps there's not just one though. What happens if say Arthur reflects the resistence tradition to the Germanic invasions?

Too easy. Just because someone is writing in a genre you've decided means something it doesn't mean that the content doesn't reflect somethig else as well, perhaps including reality. Pumpkinification?

I guess you're right there.

No, it's not. You do what you can with what you have. The rest is, well ...

But there are other approaches. Most of these people are trying for magic bullets that don't exist. Tradition comes from somewhere, though where can be extremely difficult to discern. When you find things from ancient cultures resurfacing in the grail legends, do you think that the writers of the audience even know? When Gilgamesh motifs find their way into Sinbad the Sailor?

The best that can be made out of the Egyptian is that there seemed to have been religio-political movements which the figure epitomizes.

However, Jesus mythicism apologetics has had no opportunity to develop. You haven't been fed on Jesus myth apologetics, yet you have Jesus apologetics. We are talking over 1700 years of apologetic development. Give coherent Jesus myth a few centuries. Who knows, it might turn out crap. But you won't know until it's had time to develop.

I was commenting on your desire for hard facts. This post, not what came before:
Your being a historian doesn't enter into the first part of your comment. If being a historian means being a scholar doing historical research the same scholarly rule holds: if the evidence doesn't support it, you can't.

But when were the texts written. How many hands worked on them? Were the purposes of the earlier writers the same as the later ones? Who wrote them? Where? under what conditions? You can usually make comments on these things when dealing with those classical authors generally used by historians.

I think you kid yourself. What gospel was written before Marcion?

It's only relevant when you are trying to do historical research. If you can't relate a tradition to an era, you will probably fail in your research.


still...


spin

dog-on

Sorry if I offended you. How would you describe it?

dog-on

Here is where I think the strongest argument lies for the dismissal of the Gospels as actual history. Maybe you can help me by pointing out the parts of the Gospels that do not originate from the use of midrash, other then the Q components. Then produce the first century, non-Gospel evidence which puts the Q sayings into the mouth of Jesus.

The Bishop

Can I just say, that is the bizzarest thing I've seen written to defend either point of view.

spin

Now that you've said that, what's bizzare about it?

Do you think glib christian apologetics being shoved down a non-participant's throat particularly useful? There is no thought involved in giving such responses. One just goes click, whirr, spew response. One needn't even be conscious of the click and the whirr. Things have been thought unchallenged for so long, it's very hard to think outside those furrows, furrows which obviously limit thought. If a scientific view can't be challenged on evidential grounds it is without merit. If any view can't be challenged on evidential grounds it is also without merit. But mere rhetoric, which is the core of apologetics, doesn't challenge the mythicist on evidential grounds, but generally on the grounds of precedence due to the status quo. The mythicist is still thinking the view through. Give the person the time to develop a functional counter-apologetic to deal with the apologetic levelled against her or him.

I don't hold a mythicist viewpoint, but I can see that the issue is far from decided by the off-hand gotcha.

I think those people who've been trumpeting this kata sarka as though it is meaningful seem to be blissfully unaware of Khrishna's presence or that of Hercules or perhaps even Mithras. The plain of existence in which Khrishna appeared to Arjuna doesn't match this world to me, although it is ostensibly this world. Hercules trampling around Greece doesn't add up to the Greece an ancient experienced.

The depths of Paul's understanding of Jesus simply hasn't been plumbed. We are too busy being unscholarly about everything to look carefully enough -- too into filtering him through Acts.

The only scholarly position to me is the fence. But I also think if people are prepared to be scholarly about Jesus mythicism, they should be given the opportunity of getting to some conclusion without having christian apologetic shoved down their gullets at every juncture.


spin

Ted Hoffman

This is very nicely put spin. Thanks