spin

Why is it that none of our xian brethren are of the frame of mind to humour me/us in providing the fundamental historical work that underpins their so-called historical Jesus?

One can ask only so many times, telling them that a substantive claim -- such as the reality of Jesus -- requires substantive evidence. One cannot assume that, because it has always been assumed, we don't need to substantiate it.

I'd make a recommendation to all non-xian users: ask our xian brethren to do their job, ie substantiate their claim for a historical Jesus, and not shirk their scholastic duty.


spin

rlogan

Spin, you've asked for something that the posters here cannot provide. In a sense, I feel sorry for them.

The task you've set out for them requires archaeology and having them come up with documents that as far as we know may not even exist.

There is some possibility that locked in the Vatican or the bathroom of a collector there is a signed copy of Jesus' tax return for the year 29 A.D.

But on the other hand, if one is to advance the "certainty" of a proposition absent primary evidence, then this is the appropriate response.

I'm sorry that things have gotten heated as of late. Merry Christmas everyone.

Bede

Ah yes. More creationism from the mythers. No matter how much evidence is presented, no matter how many times the matter is explained the mythers and creationists just can't get it.
BTW, atheist historians also all believe Jesus existed so your OP title is wrong.

But here we are again. Here is how we KNOW beyond reasonalbe doubt that Jesus was a Jewish preacher crucified by Pilate.

Normal methodologies of multiple independent attestation apply: for Jewish preacher - Q, GMark and Paul. Also maybe GJohn, GThomas, Josephus and other letters. For crucifixion: Paul, GMark, Tacitus, Josephus, Hebrews and other writings. Under Pilate: GMark, pseudo-Paul, Josephus, Tacitus maybe GJohn.

Normal proceedures over reading the sources disapply the alternative readings of Paul that mythers follow. Born of woman means born of a woman.

Criteria of verisimilatude reinforces picture of Roman oppression of Jews: Pilate himself has a contempory inscription as witness.

Parsimony leads to a common historical source for Q, Paul and Mark's Jesuses as they are all independent of each other.

Criteria of non-contradiction notes fatally for the myth case that there was no branch of the notoriously fracticious early Christians denying Jesus was crucified (although some insisted it was a phantom, they didn't deny the event). If HJ was a later invention you can bet that many Christians would have clung to the earlier preaching of non historical Christ but we have no witness of them or polemic against them. Hence all that stuff about trying (and failing) to get Marcion on the myther side.

Historical sociology tells us that it is inconceivable in that society that a myth would be invented around a criminal crucified by the very secular power that the myth needed to ingratiate.

Reading the sources against themselves, it is clear that they are engaged in special pleading with regard to explaining the crucifixion which they would clearly rather be without. The progressive movement to blame the Jews rather than Pilate also points to Pilate being the original institigator and this needed dealing with.

To get at specific events you need more advanced methodologies such as stratification, dissimilarity, embarressment etc. A lot of what we say about Jesus can be open to question. His existence as a crucified Jewish preacher is not.

And yes Spin, I have a history masters from a world class university and am doing a history PhD at another even more world class university.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

GakuseiDon

I like Lowder's article: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/indconf.html

It's more a look at the non-canonical evidence for a HJ, but still interesting.

Lowder concludes:
That, to me, is the crux of the issue. The NT itself provides a prima facie case for a HJ. But it isn't over-whelming proof by any means, and a well-developed MJ case would probably demolish it, as Carrier points out in his review of Doherty.

spin

This means you're convinced a priori of your beliefs, not of your evidence.

Try reading what I said, and not what you want to read. To help you out, "our xian brethren" was a genteel way of referring to the xians who post here.

Oh, gosh, thanks, but before we go, what I'd like from you is an effort to validate your witnesses, rather than slavishly give texts that don't show you doing your job. We can just read McDowell if we want that.

It seems that we have to deal with each of these. Perhaps you'd like to make a case for each.

I'm not a myther. You are supposed to do your job and not change the subject.

Seneca has historical support, so I guess you accept the lettes from Paul to Seneca.

When are you going to show that you are a historian?

Whoops, "historical source"? Source maybe, but no insinuating "historical", just separate. I guess you also give credence to all those birth gospels and other weird gospels for your notion of parsimony.

You're still wasting your time dealing with off-topic ideas. You're supposed to be attempting to show historical justification for HJ, not try to knock down someone's formulation of MJ. The latter is naturally easier to do.

You might think it's inconceivable, but your MJers don't. This is not an argument at all. I suppose you think it inconceivable that a society could embrace a religion which told its believers that some wouldn't die before the second coming, when we get a few centuries after the "fact". Let's forget about shaping "historical sociology".

Sounds good to you I suppose, but this is shifting words about along the futile lines of the HJer, especially when you (we) don't know enough about the period to make such value judgments.

So far this has been a meta-crock of apologetics.

Stratification usually amounts to text shaping.

Dissimilarity, ditto, in the context of "synoptic" texts

Embarrassment, doh, you know what was embarrassing to an ancient writer???

This HJ stuff is modern writers wasting too much time not contemplating what they don't know about their sources.

Well, bugger me. Maybe you should try hairdressing.


spin

Vorkosigan

LOL. More using the Nicene Creed as an interpretive filter....

1. None of these documents are independent. So multiple attestation cannot apply. 2. Alternative histories known as well -- Jesus whacked by Herod in other gospels (hint in Luke). 3. All stories of Crucifixion embedded in fictions, so therefore in doubt; earliest claims contain no mention of Pilate. 4. Tacitus too late, obviously recounts Christian legend. 5. Josephus is complete forgery. Other points too numerous to list. After all, three Scottish historians treat Robin Hood as historical figure...

Actually, there are no "normal" procedures for determining this. Scholars on both sides simply make them up as they go along. Witness Haran's comment in the thread about Doherty's reading of "born of a woman." And Doherty's position is not a whole lot better, save by virtue of being more restricted.

Oppression of Jews does not mean anything regarding Jesus' historicity. Plausibility is not reality. Robin Hood is a very plausible outlaw in the early stories.

Mark, Q and Paul may be independent, may not. Common source may be tradition, may not. No evidence here either way. Your certainty is not supported by the record.

No one denies Crucifixion on myther side. Merely gospel account of it, which is obvious fabrication. What happened at Crucifixion, and whose is being recounted, is no longer accessible to us. Confusion apparently on Historicist side.

Historical sociology also tells us that retrojecting future historical claims into stories of past events is common. And also tells us, even more urgently, that origin stories are myths.

>sigh< Completely subjective.

The earliest record makes no mention of Pilate's hand in Jesus' death. That is later gospel fabrication.

None of the methodologies you propose offers any hope of analysis of content to determine what is historical or not.

Good luck.

Vorkosigan

mike_decock

[Mod Mode]

Bede and Spin: Please reduce the sarcasm and underhanded sniping. There's been enough insult-fests in here lately.

Thanks,

-Mike...

Amos

If we could we wouldn't and shouldn't because that would lead people to believe for the wrong reason. There is absolutly no value in the historical Jesus and the worst thing we can possibly do is cling to him and worship him as a God while in fact he was just like one of us and had to be crucified to get back into paradise himself. In Catholicism many have followed his footsteps and left their own legend behind, much like he did and greater still, as he said we would.

To worship him would identify us with the second beast of revelation and that is the last place we want to be. Instead we should become like the first beast and get out of purgatory in 42 months.

rlogan

Hey GD - Lowder has a very good point regarding care with our definitions. Thank you.

Bede - I think therin lies a lot of the friction that has been generated, and all of us have tried to make the point at one time or another.

At its most absurd level, Someone named Jesus existed. No argument there from anybody.

Someone named Jesus was a teacher in Galilee. Doubt there's argument there, either.

As we keep adding in more and more that gets us closer to the gospel accounts then we start to see people dropping out. Also, for some, they may think a substantially HJ may be reasonable -but it is not beyond reasonbable doubt, either.

I have proposed that it is likely more than one person was merged into this composite gospel Jesus, along with myth. Do I think someone was crucified for sedition? Plenty of them were, in fact. Some of them were named Jesus, even.

This stuff is outside my training but I'm surprised at some of the arguments that are used for establishing historicity of the more particular Jesus - such as historical inertia.

They were killing people who disagreed with canon for a goodly portion of the ensuing history, and the field has been dominated by apologetics otherwise. There is no such principle in my area. It's mostly just math.

You are a resurrection believer, are you not? I think that has important implications for the methodology one accepts. That's a pretty particular Jesus you are defending. There, Bede, we disagree not on historical method - but on principles of science.

Vork - you have made an important analogy with Robin Hood. There, too, more than one candidate exists that may have been conflated into the myth.

The composite school approach has proved to be so successful in so many different applications that the exponential membership growth is self explanatory.

Amaleq13

Paul asserts Jesus is Jewish but he never describes him as a preacher. The information Paul attributes to Jesus is as the Risen Christ.

Q portrays a man named "Jesus" as a prophet and preacher but not as a messianic atoning sacrifice.

GMark is the only one of the three to portray Jesus as all of the above.