Metacrock

argument 1: had Jesus been fictional the first century Jewish opponents of Christianity would have known it, and they would have expossed it.

This is an empirical conclusion and can be logically demonstrated by an examination of what did actually happen.

(1) The Mishna draws upon first century sources which deal with Jesus.





"The Historicity of Jesus Christ"
by Wayne Jackson
The Christian Courier December, 7 1998



"Additionally, the Jewish Babylonian Talmud ..took note of the Lord's existence. Collected into a final form in the fifth century A.D., it is derived from earlier materials, some of which originated in the first century. Its testimony to Jesus' existence is all the more valuable, as it is extremely hostile. It charges that Christ (Who is called Ben Pandera) was born out of wedlock after His mother had been seduced by a Roman soldier named Pandera or Panthera. Respected scholar Bruce Metzger has commented upon this appellation: "The defamatory account of his birth seems to reflect a knowledge of the Christian tradition that Jesus was the son of the virgin Mary, the Greek word for virgin, parthenos, being distorted into the name Pandera" (1965, p. 76). The Talmud also refers to Jesus' miracles as "magic," and records that He claimed to be God. It further mentions His execution on the eve of the Passover. Jewish testimony thus supports the New Testament position on the historical existence of Jesus."


While these Talmudic source have no real historical validity in documenting the life of Jesus, they do at least demonstrate that no mention is made of the idea that he was merely ficticious. Had there been no Jesus of Nazareth, surely his Jewish opponents would have made much of this fact. They were not stupid. They did have living memory. For the Chrsitians to begin talking about this woder worker who lived almost 100 years earlier, when no one had ever heard of him before, certainly would have brought a reaction to that effect from the Jewish opponents. Instead, they assert with boldness that they know all about him; they also assume he existed!


(2) First century Jews could easily determine that Jesus didn't exist.


Nazerath, as I have documented on the Doherty thread, was a very small place in the first century.It had only 35 families and they were all related. Since the Gospels all calmed that Jesus came from Naerath, it would have been an easy matter to go ask the people of Nazerath about Joseph, Mary and their son Jesus.

Imagine their surprize when they say "we never heard of him."


(3) They did try to cover Jesus background.


Why didn't this happen? They clearly had a motive to do so, because they tried to; they produced propagandistic accounts of his background. Why couldn't they just ask and discover no one ever remembered anyone like that at Nazerath?

In fact they produced some accont of his background, althogh probably "spun" to make him look bad. But they did not argue that he didn't exist because clealry they had evidence that he did.


Argument no 2: Original Gospels were Saying sources.

(1) Docs

This can be documented quite extensively in the works of Helmutt Koester (Ancient Christian Gospels). One of the reasons for believing gTom to be ealier than the Canonicals is it's nature as a saying source. It's also documented in F.F. Bruce, The NT Documents: Are They Reliable


(2) Why?

Why did they have a collection of sayings before they had a narrative, for a fictional character? Where did the fictional character exist prior to the narrative? Why did a fictional character have a well developed body of sayings that,presumably, had to be memorized, prior to the development of narratives about him?

Apikorus

The Mishnah? Strange, since the Mishnah is famously devoid of aggadic material. You sure you don't mean the Gemara? Do you know the difference between Mishnah, Gemara, and Talmud?

Metacrock

Read the Bruce book. But i meant to say more soruces than just mishna. We were arguing on that ealier. The quote above talks about the Babylonian Talmud. If i'm not mistaken that doesn't have the mishna I don't think. So it's many sources.

Amaleq13

How could the first century Jewish opponents of Christian preaching like Paul's have sufficiently identified a specific individual so as to expose that he was a myth?

Where is the evidence to supports this assertion? Wayne Jackson's opinion does not constitute evidence and Metzger's opinion suggests that this Jewish evidence is not independent of Christian tradition. What evidence shows that these specific claims allegedly related to Jesus can be dated any earlier than the 5th century?

If they have "no real historical validity", how can they support the claim of first century sources?

Where is the evidence that 1st century Jewish opponents accepted that Jesus was from Nazareth?

The link you provided offered a very general dating of habitation but does not specify evidence of early 1st century habitation.

Is that how they learned that he was the bastard child of a Roman soldier?

How do you eliminate the obvious possibility that they simply fabricated the stories in response to Christian claims?

This is not clear at all. The evidence offered could simply be fabricated distortions of Christian claims with no other evidence than the claims, themselves. How are distortions of Gospel claims evidence of independent knowledge?

Metacrock

Eaisly. He had to be from Galilee. Once it was known where, as it probably was because the stories were circualting since AD 50 in written form, they would have known. they called him "Jesus of Nazerath." If Jo is right.


You ask several things here. Why is Jackson not evidence? Becasue it disagrees with you. I also site Bruce and Edersheim. Not independent of Christian belief; why didn't the Christians just say "hey its just a story" rather get killed by Nero? They assume the hisotricity in answering the Christian claims. If Jesus had never existed they could never find any evidence on him. That's manifest becasue they did try to manufacture it. No one would have heard of him. Woudn't that just send up a red flag? No one remembers this crucificition this empty tomb, but they just don't say it?That makes no sense.




that means saying jesus father a Roman solider is not a historical claim. But it doesn't mean they didn't assume he was a historical guy.Who would bother to make up a bogus past for a fictional chacter. They would not bother with character assasination if they didn't take him to be a real person.





Gustav Dalman was probably the greatest Aramaic scholar of his day. His Jesus Christ in the Talmud, Midrash, and the Zohar" was first published in 1894.



Extract: "Jesus is commonly referred to in the Talmud and in Talmudic literature by the expressions "Son of Stada (Satda)", and "Son of Pandera" These are so accepted that they appear constantly in the Babylonian Talmud (cp. the Targum Sheni on Esther VII 9) even without the name Jesus. It might seem to be a question as to who it is that is to be understood by these. But in the Jerusalem Talmud (Avodah Zarah II. 40d), the full name is given as Yeshu ben Pandera (for which Shabbath XIV 14d has more briefly, Yeshu Pandera); and in the Tosephta on Hullin II, the full name is given as Yeshu ben Pantera and Yeshu ben Pantere. So then Ben Pandera or ben Pantere also bears the name Yeshu. Further, the Jesus the Nazarene who is "hanged on the evening before Passover" (Sanhedrin 43a) is on the other hand (Sanhedrin 67a) also called the "son of Stada (Satda)". It is evident that in both these places the same person is spoken of. Here these two passages may be considered conclusive, since they repeat each other using the similar language, and in a section of the text which is chiefly concerned about Jesus; and so we see that Jesus was also referred to as Ben Stada".



If you want to argue Nazarean rather than a person from Naerath, then fine. They still would know they never heard of him. He would have to produce his linage to be considered as Messiah. that's why they had the geneologies so they would still have been able to know there was no such line.


Yea it sure does. You didn't read it carefully enough.It says inhabited througout Roman times which includes first century. you can also see the link to Naz village project which is spcirific to first century.



Hey so what if he was? Does that mean he wasn't a real person?

I don't, but who would do that for a fictional character? they obviously considered him real.


It doesn't make sense why they would stick with that knowning they never heard of him, they never heard of an empty tomb, that no one every saw any healings by him that there were no crowds no triumphal entry into the city ect ect. You want us to think they would just accept anything, You could tell them about men from Mars and they would just accep tit. Get real It's absurd

they would have and could have checked it out.

why have a saying source for a fictional character before you write his story?

Apikorus

Metacrock, you don't seem to have a clear idea of what the Mishnah and Talmud are. The Mishnah is a rather tersely worded collection of legal material dating to ca. 200 CE. The Gemara is a commentary on the Mishnah. The Mishnah and the Gemara together make up the Talmud. There are two Talmuds (Palestinian and Babylonian).

There is essentially no aggadic material (i.e. stories) in the Mishnah. It is almost exclusively halakhic (i.e. legal).

Please tell us exactly which sections of the Mishnah you believe contain some reference to Jesus. I have no idea what you are talking about when you cite the Mishnah. The Talmud, which was compiled centuries later, is a different kettle of fish.

Toto

The quote from Wayne Jackson is from here on apologeticspress.org

Iasion

Greetings all,

Only IF there was a 1st century belief in a historical Jesus of Nazareth.

But the Christian record shows no such view in the 1st century - mention of a historical Jesus of Nazareth does not occur until 2nd century.


No they don't.
If you claim so, can you provide any evidence of these 1st century sources?


No-one, not even Christian writers, mentions "Jesus of Nazareth" until after the 130CE up-rising - that's a CENTURY after the alleged events, and after two wars. If no 1st century Christian ever mentioned "Jesus of Nazareth", then how would 1st century pagans ever hear about him?

Furthermore, it is NOT clear whether Nazareth even existed in early 1st century - where did you get the 35 families from?

After a century and 2 wars - who would be left to ask?
Even IF Nazareth really existed?


And,
why don't you check your work before posting, Metacrock?

Your work is full of crude spelling and grammar errors, and you make the most basic mistakes of facts - I wonder do you type in hurried anger and then immediately bash the "post" key with a cry of "take that you nasty atheist!" ?

It sure looks like it.

I suggest you take the time to check your work more carefully if you hope to be taken seriously here.

Iasion

spin

Metacrock is already hurling unsupported assumptions, so there's not much point in trying to go through it even with a paddle.

One comment here: Nazareth is not in the earliest layers of the gospel tradition. Matthew and Mark share none of their Nazareth traditions, nor does Matthew and Luke. In fact, there is only one mention of Nazareth in Mark, 1:9, which is not attested to in either of the other synoptics. Mark does tell us about Jesus the Nazarene. This last term is not derivable from Nazareth, whose gentilic would appear as nazareQaios or nazareQhnos (or a few other less probable options). Matthew doesn't of course understand nazarhnos, so it is removed from his source as not communicative. Yet later with extra material the term nazwraios is added to Matthew, as well as stuff about Nazareth. Luke has used a few of Mark's nazarhnos, once as is and another time taken as the gentilic for Nazareth and changed accordingly. A further note of interest, both Matthew and Luke feature once a reference to a place called Nazara, routinely translated as Nazareth, and this term would make a functional source for Mark's apparent gentilic nazarhnos, yet Mark doesn't know it. The conclusions reached with a fuller presentation of this material is that Mark didn't know of a place called Nazareth (nor Nazara), but considered Capernaum as the home of Jesus. The term nazarhnos is not directly related to Nazareth at all, but to a nexus of Hebrew words which mean "branch", "watch/keep", and Nazirite, so the term must be seen as initially sectarian in nature. So Metacrock is once again blatantly wrong in his uncritical approach to his sources when he says 'they called him "Jesus of Nazerath."'


spin

Vorkosigan

Not only that, but the text of 1:9 does not use the definite article before "Jesus", another indication that the text has been tampered with. Most likely "Nazareth" is probably an addition to the text.

Vorkosigan