mens_sana

This type of statement depends upon what the reader will accept as evidence. Crossan thinks that very little of the Jesus story is historical, excepting only the baptism by John, the ministry around Capernaum, and the crucifixion (if I remember rightly). His decision on the HJ is based upon the Jesus Sayings Parallels: multiply attested sayings — which use the same words in the same grammatical formations — from sources independent of each other.

A successful mythicist argument would be able to explain away these parallels. Assigning the sayings to other people or traditions just does not do away with this concatenation.

ChandraRama

Historical Jesus appear very plausible for the fact there are lot of anti-roman and pro-messianic sayings available in the Jesus narrative. It is very likely that the HJ was there as one of the anti-roman pretenders to the throne of David. After his death, his followers unable to reconcile the death, created this cult that he will be back. It is not impossible to come up with this kind of cults. The King Frederick cult that expected the King Frederick to come back and the Last Imam Al-Mahdi as expected even today by the Shias attest to the fact such an expectation even after the death of the cult leader is possible.

jjramsey

You seem to be confusing evangelical apologists, who invariably do accept miracles and believe that the NT is reasonably reliable, with biblical scholars, who do not necessarily believe either of those things.

Except this describes something more like F.F. Bruce's discussion of the accuracy of Luke than what the historical Jesus scholars have written.

GakuseiDon

I have to ask, what exactly is wrong with that? Peter Kirby states that he is "presently persuaded to regard the shorter reference as authentic" and notes here (my emphasis):

"But assuming that at least the shorter reference is authentic, what can we conclude from this? It shows that Josephus accepted the historicity of Jesus. Simply by the standard practice of conducting history, a comment from Josephus about a fact of the first century constitutes prima facie evidence for that fact. It ought to be accepted as history unless there is good reason for disputing the fact."

In this article here, Jeffrey Jay Lowder examines whether the New Testament provides prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. He looks at some criteria of independent confirmation, and concludes (my emphasis):

"There simply is nothing epistemically improbable about the mere existence of a man named Jesus. (Just because Jesus existed does not mean that he was born of a virgin, that he rose from the dead, etc.) Although a discussion of the New Testament evidence is beyond the scope of this paper, I think that the New Testament does provide prima facie evidence for the historicity of Jesus. It is clear, then, that if we are going to apply to the New Testament "the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material," we should not require independent confirmation of the New Testament's claim that Jesus existed."

They're certainly not claims for the existence of a Gospel Jesus. But if the evidence is enough to establish that there probably was a HJ, then how can it be said that the existence of a HJ is "presumed"? You may believe that this isn't valid evidence in YOUR eyes, but that doesn't mean that others don't find it valid.

Diogenes the Cynic

I think the Lowder qiote is a little disingenuous. Prima facie evidence is not the same as convincing or conclusive evidence. It's just means that, on a very superficial level (i.e. before it is subjected to analysis or testing) the evidence indicates X. There are many human characters in historical literature whose existence is not inherently implausible (Achilles, Beowolf, Lancelot) but for who we can infer ahistoricity by the presence of those characters in clearly fictional/mythical contexts. It's not really true that anyone is evaluating the Gospel claims for HJ any differently or dismissively than they read claims for other characters in other "historical material" as long as it is recognized that historical material has to be evaluated for genre before it can be evaluated for historicity. The Gospels are not histories they are fictions and they are evaluated exactly the same as other religious fictions.

GakuseiDon

Sure, but that is a definite step above "we just assume that there is X". If there is actually evidence there such that it is able to be subjected to analysis, then we have moved beyond assumptions.

mikem

I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that historical material has to be evaluated for genre before it can be evaluated for historicity. I assume that you mean a text has to be identifed as belonging to a genre, and if that genre is "history", then you can go on to examine how accurate and reliable it is as a historical source, as one would do with Josephus for example. In the case of the four primary gospels (leaving aside the issue of whether gnostic gospels are to be given equal weight), the synoptics at least claim to be dealing with a historical figure. Luke is more explicit on this head than the others, but both Matthew and Mark are writing with the intention of placing Jesus in the flow of history. So historians are justified in starting from this premise, and attempting to discover then whether the gospels provide sufficient support for that, i.e how reliable and accurate the gospels are, TAKING INTO ACCOUNT THE LITERARY CONVENTIONS OF THE TIME.

As I see it, the only justification for treating the gospels as fictions at the outset would be if the evidence for a historical Jesus were so entirely lacking, and the "fit" between Jesus and the environment in which he is placed is so incongruous that to regard him as a fiction would be by far the best explanation for this. The evidences for the existence of Jesus as a 1st century prophet, make it reasonable to assume that he did exist. It is perfectly legitimate then to argue about the value of those evidences, and how much support they give to the original assumption. If it turns out that they are as poor as the mythicists make out, then agnosticism would be the reasonable postion, unless the Mythicists can come up with a good case of their own that would explain why this Jesus, with the features ascribed to him in the gospels was created at this time.

Their case would also have to explain how the gospels came to have the features they did, i.e the clear evidence of theological development between the three synoptics and also between the synoptics and John, which make more sense on the basis of their being a historical Jesus whose followers came to regared as divine, as described by Vermes. The Mythicists would have to explain (or explain away) the clear evidence of different traditions being redacted, that mirrors this theological evolution. It is simply not one would expect on a Mythicist model.

In my view, although I am only an amateur in this area, the arguments for the existence of Jesus still outweigh the arguments against.

Doug Shaver

So quickly after what? If there was no real Jesus, there is no telling how long Christianity existed prior to Paul's writings.

jjramsey

Except a lack of evidence of Christianity prior to the first century, and a lack of evidence that Christianity was a hidden cult that wouldn't be expected to have left traces prior to the first century.

Diogenes the Cynic

It has to be determined whether the piece is intended as fiction or non-fiction. We do not make the same assumptions for Gilagamesh as we do for Josephus. The Gospels are in the same category as the former, not the latter.
So does Gilgamesh. So does Homer. That claim, in itself, means nothing.
That's how mythology works. That's what Homer does with Achilles and Odysseus, that's what the OT does with Moses, that's what the Bhagavad-Gita does with Krishna. Placing supernatural events or legendary heroes or gods within a historical context is one of the defining elements of myth. It is still no evidence at all that Jesus was part of the flow of history.
Another defining element of mythology and a conclusive proof that a narrative must be fiction is the presence of impossible or fantastic claims. Any narrative which contains incarnated gods, miracles, virgin births, resurrections, etc. is indisputably fiction and indisputably identifiable as myth rather than literal history. Once we have determined that a narrative cannot be literal history we also cannot accept its characters as historical without corroboraton.
The justification for treating the Gospels as fiction is that they make claims which cannot possibly be historical. If a narrative cannot be history, it is fiction. QED. Of course, it is entirely possible that fictional narratives can be created about real people but in those cases it is necessary to seek historical corroboration outside the obvious fictions. It is circular to cite a provably fictional work as evidence for the historicity of its characters.
If you want to talk about extra-Biblical evidence (as scant as it is) that's one thing, and it's a fair topic for debate. My point is only that it is specious to the point of sophistry to claim that the claims of the Gospels are prima facie evidence for HJ in themselves. That's really just playing with words.