Chris Weimer

Yes, that Lesbia. The only Lesbia whom was referred to having an affair with Lesbius called pulcer.

Chris Weimer

I've been thinking of Toto's words: "But how would we ever know."

I can't seriously believe that after 7 years of IIDB, he still hasn't figured out that no one in historical studies "knows". What we cannot show, we do not know.

Instead, historians create a reconstruction of the past that best fits the available evidence. Literary figures are connected with historical figures in many ways, including literary clues, resemblance, and contemporary hints.

We need strong critical work, not obscurantism. Neusner's maxim does not invalidate anything. It merely means that we cannot be absolutely sure. And we cannot in any case.

So merely positing that "Jesus was a myth because there's no evidence in favor of him" is a non sequitur. Jesus would be a myth because the available evidence points in favor of Jesus being fabricated, not because there isn't enough evidence to authenticate his actual existence.

How can we scoff HJism if we do not even work in standard historical paradigms?

The real reason that aa12345's (and apparently many other users here share this opinion) position is analogous to creationism is because they don't work within the historical paradigm. Their operation is that because someone doesn't have enough of the "right kind" of evidence in favor of their existence, then by default they didn't exist.

Sounds like the same argument used against the "missing links". Such and such species in transition isn't found in the fossil record, therefore they didn't exist.

While with real history you cannot do such a thing. If the Palestinians had Egyptian DNA pointing to an Egyptian origin, yet no exodus occured, it doesn't mean that an exodus never happened. It means that we have to figure out what happened.

So far, I've seen only three general positions that attempt to answer this question: Doherty's (well known enough not to go into detail), spin's (Paul thought he missed the savior, gospels reconstructed based on Paul), and what used to be Malachi151's (syncretism led to a new Jesus cult, and only later did their god anthropomorphize).

So to answer your question, no, you cannot know. Catullus never says, "Oh, and Lesbia is actually Clodia, sister of Publius Clodius Pulcher." However, he leaves clues. The historians fits the clues together to get a fuller picture.

Chris Weimer

She's even better in Greek.

Toto

In other words, cutting the insults, you don't know and you're trying to rationalize your guesses.

Are you saying that there is a standard historical paradigm?

Please stop this nonsense. Creationists do not use a paradigm that says that missing evidence shows that evolution is false. Creationists' paradigm is that the Bible is true, therefore evolution is false, therefore any lame argument can be raised just to annoy evilutionists. If one transitional fossil is found, they say, aha, now there are two missing links. Do you think they are that stupid? No, they are playing games.

And since you won't drop this creationist analogy, here are reasons why HJ'ers are more like creationists than MJers:

1. Both HJ'ers and creationists believe that the Bible is not fiction.
2. Creationists think that the world is too complex to have evolved, and it requires a creator. HJ'ers think that Christianity could not just have evolved, but required a charismatic founder figure who inspired the early disciples.

This seems like a very strange example for you to use. Archeologists have concluded that the Exodus never occurred because there is absolutely no evidence of it where one would expect to find evidence.

If you have enough clues, you can get a fuller picture. But you don't have those sort of clues for the existence of Jesus.

And of course, Catullus was writing literature. Early Christians were not writing that sort of literature.

Spanky

Chris, I feel you are in over your head.
Your special pleading to your idea of what scholarship is and should be is dizzying. Especially when it comes to Jesus.
Standard historical paradigm? How about a standard MYTH paradigm? That is what we are dealing with, Chris, a myth.
When you read the gospels and epistles, Chris, do you see a reality based story? People rising from the dead, water turning into wine, walking on water, caught up into the third heaven, etc. If so, why? If not, why? This is what I don't understand about you. Jesus was and is created of myth, not history. If there was a man behind the myth than he is lost forever and will never be found.
I feel your "scholarship" is not actually scholarship. It is just anti-JM. Nothing more, nothing less. And when you see that you will be better off.

gurugeorge

There seems to be a curiously subtle and bizarre reversal of the burden of proof in the way you put this. I'm not quite sure I can put my finger on it, but here's an attempt:

What you say would only make sense if the "Jesus being fabricated" looked like a human being in the first place. (Like your Lesbia)

But the entity in the texts is, on the face of it, so obviously and evidently heavily spiritual/mystical/visionary/mythological (as sparky has pointed out) that it seems to me that the burden of proof is really on those who would suggest the entity in question is a mythologised man rather than a pure myth; or, to put it another way, the burden of proof is on someone who would seek to show that the "eheumeristic" explanation of (what is obviously) a Christ myth is the correct one (rather than the myth being the development of previous myths as a result of visionary/mystical experience, which is what it looks like on the surface).

A man behind the myth is an extra entity that has to be proved: the burden of proof is on the person who believes there's a man behind the (evident and obvious) myth, the burden of proof is not on the person who doesn't believe there's necessarily a man behind the myth (i.e. he doesn't have to prove that "a man behind the myth" was fabricated)!

********************

Or, to look at this from another angle. There was already a Messiah myth (or rather several) before the Joshua Messiah version of it. The burden of proof is on those who think that, suddenly, this new version of the myth has (at its origin) a real human being behind it, rather than it being merely another mythological development of the myth itself.

The thing that confuses here is that unlike most myths, the common Messiah myth was about a coming, future entity rather than an entity in the past (hence the parade of false human claimants to that throne).

What the Joshua Messiah myth does is put the Messiah in the past (making him like most other myths), but this time reversal doesn't necessitate that there actually was a human "claimant Messiah" in the past who prompted the time reversal (i.e. who prompted the acceptance of the Messiah-in-the-past idea).

Vorkosigan

Either you're working within the historical paradigm, or you're a creationist.

Having a little trouble with false dichotomies there, Chris?

Chris Weimer

Before I get to Toto, I'd like to root out a bit misunderstanding.

Mythology can falls under two paradigms. One is comparative, comparing one culture's mythology with another's, the other is historical, figuring out how that mythology came about. They're intertwined, really. But I'm guessing you really don't know much about historical studies to figure out that I didn't mean that the historical paradigm "assumes" Jesus to be historical. And your idea of Jesus as a myth and thus it falls under the myth paradigm (whatever that really means) is circular logic. Place Jesus as a myth, and of course he'll be a myth. But if you place him in the historical paradigm, he can be either myth or history.

Some scholars actually echo that last statement. It's certainly not an invalid position. I disagree, but it's much different than what others have been saying here. It's not the same position at all, even though they like to use that position to champion their own.

Oh right, because obviously the Jesus Myth came first. Get to understanding how scholars actually reconstruct history.

Chris Weimer

Yes, you're catching on. The only one who lacks a burden of proof, thus an unfalsifiable position, is the position of aa12345 and such. Both proponents of "Historical Jesus" and "Jesus Myth" share the burden of showing that their reconstructed versions of history fit the available evidence.

Is it appropriate to call it a myth? I do not think so at all.

If you've assumed that it was a myth in the first place, then you've already assumed your conclusion. It's all circular from there.

That's why it's improper to label it "myth".

This doesn't follow your last idea. Think about - a parade of false human Messianic claimants - if there was truly a parade of them, then why don't you share the burden of proving that this one wasn't human. I hope you see how fallacious the thinking is, whether right or wrong.

Let me repeat what I said:

Both proponents of "Historical Jesus" and "Jesus Myth" share the burden of showing that their reconstructed versions of history fit the available evidence.

Chris Weimer

No, you're either working within the historical paradigm, or you're not doing history. Creationism is an analogy. It's not working within the scientific paradigm, it's doing faith.

You're either driving a car, or you're not driving a car. You cannot be doing both simultaneously.