aa5874

Then your George Bush is not real.

Solitary Man

But clearly George Bush is real. He's the president right now. I don't see how you can logically claim that he vanishes into ahistoricity when someone writes a novel about him.

Solitary Man

Yes, novels alone would not make George Bush historical. However, luckily for us there's more than just the gospels.

Solitary Man

I never said they did. For one who mocks those whom you say butcher your arguments, you butchered mine beyond recognition.

No, that's your tortured reading. My analogy was only that a character cast in fiction doesn't mean that character is himself fiction. He may say and do fictional things, but that doesn't make him fiction.

Please, spin, what tools do you use to contextualize Josephus? How is Josephus different than Jesus?

You think Tacitus or Suetonius got everything right? Laughable.

Not if Josephus took the report from someone else. How do you know?

A naive literalist reading? Are you joking me? You might need to brush up on some terminology.

Factoring in the different traditions apart from the Gospels, the Ebionim (I believe you keep mentioning their alleged founder, though in a somewhat distorted analogy to Christ, as I believe either Gakusei Don or Gamera, I forget which, pointed out...I don't recall if you answered that one either), Thomas, Paul, the James group, the Johannine group, the early church fathers who claim to have been taught by a disciple of Jesus himself...we're actually left with quite a lot.

Sure, if we only had the gospels alone, we'd be at a loss. But we don't. We have much more. We have independent strands of tradition. Moreover, we don't have anything parallel to Christianity if your argument that Jesus did not ever exist was right (oh, oh, you're "agnostic", but your position is virtually the same as aa5874's).

spin

True.

I was talking about contextualizing texts. I'm not particularly interested in Josephus the writer other than how the figure helps us understand the writings.

It's interesting to watch you gore your own strawman.

We are dealing with the time of the writer. He has the ability to find out because he was around. It may be that it was a report. It's irrelevant.

Yep.

Nope.

You're the one who wants to read parts of the text that you arbitrarily decide are kosher, as representing a real past. On what grounds? Because the text doesn't say not to. Naive literalism.

(I've already got the idea, Chris, that you can't see the point of Ebion, but that's your problem. Ebion is interesting because he is a figure who was neither historical nor mythical, but still not real, yet was thought to be real.)

Tertullian writes about Ebion around 200CE. The Ebionim are not helpful. So, the different traditions you want to factor in....

Thomas is a gnostic favorite. Is there anything historical in that work? Does it present itself in any way as being historical? It's a bunch of sayings with even less narrative glue than what the gospels would have when you removed all the unacceptable stuff.

As I've pointed out elsewhere Paul is of no help to finding a historical Jesus. His Jesus was revealed to him. According to Gal 1:12 he didn't receive his information from humans. Paul has the traits of someone capable of paranoid episodes. However, it is sufficient that his proselytes believed him. The James group, well, where's your contemporary evidence? None. If the Johannine group is centered around the gospel of John, then it is a separate tradition from the Marcan tradition. But they are both obviously much later than Paul's time, so they aren't much help, are they? We are stuck at Paul's revelation. If you can see a way to get back before the time of Paul's revelation, then let's hear about it.

You can't assume independent strands of tradition when you cannot date works. It's obvious that the synoptics are functionally the one major tradition with untestable add-ins. The relationship between John and the synoptics may be unclear but they are both quite a bit later than Paul. THe other "strands" are not on the historical playing field.

My position has always been that there's not enough evidence. What I discover is that people can't cope with the possibility that one may have to remain not knowing, so a replacement for error is useful. So, I will argue that a non-existent Jesus is quite a viable alternative, though I wouldn't argue that it was a mythical Jesus. More a figure that has made it into a tradition and from then on seen as real. You know, like Ebion. One who could be the product of an erroneous assumption like Ebion or of a paranoid (Or perhaps just dream) experience, like Paul's vision.

It's only necessary to propose an alternative because those who should be doing their job of demonstrating the historicity of Jesus seem to be terminally inept and unable to perceive that they have responsibilities if they want to do history.

You have always followed the policy of sitting on your A and expecting others to disprove what you haven't the ability to prove. You usually appreciate that who puts forward a substantive case needs to do the evidential shuffle. That is their responsibility. And in case I didn't hear, it shouldn't be hard to point me in the direction of the substantive evidence. But you can't do it in the substantive case for a historical Jesus. You haven't seen anyone do it. Yet you apparently accept it based on the assumption that because there are texts that talk about Jesus and because no-one has shown he wasn't a historical figure, he must have been one.


spin

Solitary Man

Sorry, I certainly meant Josephus as metonymy for the works of Josephus.

You said that putting words in their mouths was different than actual actions. If you think that Suetonius correctly got the history right, then you're wrong. If you mean something else, speak up now.

How do you know that Josephus was around at that time?

Then you've woefully misunderstood my position. Perhaps I am a bit unclear. Perhaps you ought to take your own advice.

I'm sorry, what may appear as "arbitrary" to you isn't so.

Ian, as either Don or Gamera said, pardon my ignorance of which one said what, Ebion was not considered historical by the Ebionites. This invalidates your entire analogy, since Jesus was considered historical by Christians. You miss this point, but it doesn't work with it.

A gnostic favorite? Where in the Greek Thomas is anything Gnostic? It's important for trajectory, something you seem to be hiding from.

But was it to James? Or Cephas? Or John? Or the Christians whom he was persecuting?

Paul was only one figure, why are you relating John to Paul? That the Johannine group (and it's more than John, btw) is crucial to the matter. What does it tell you?

And just where do you think that the extra-synoptic stuff came from?

I'm well aware that the evidence is skimpy. I just disagree with you that we cannot draw certain conclusions from it.

Demonstrate the historicity of Jesus? No, spin, that's a strawman. We follow the evidence. The evidence points to a real man named Jesus behind the stories.

[ snipped the rest since it's mere insults ]

Ted Hoffman

Wrong how? The date is wrong? The reasons for the census are wrong? What do you mean?
Poof! the gospels go away! Is that how you handle texts? I frankly thought you were earnest.

spin

Now you're putting words in my mouth.

From the vast amount of correct information he provides and as I indicated he has provided information which no-one knew until his version was confirmed.

Why not explain your position exactly?

OK, as it appears arbitrary, perhaps you could provide some coherence to what you are doing.

Wrong. Try again.

This is still an utter silly objection. I have never talked about the importance of Ebion to the Ebionites. That's someone trying to break an analogy when they don't even understand the analogy. Ebion was seen by such learned people as Tertullian and Epiphanius as a real human being, yet he wasn't. What have the Ebionites got to do with the perception of Tertullian that the non-existent Ebion was real??

The fact is that Ebion was accepted into a tradition as real even though he wasn't. The same process is possible regarding Jesus. It is the mechanism that is being looked at not at who accepted the figure, an acceptance which is a red herring.

Yup. That's where the only full copy of the text was ever found amongst gnostic texts.

I have no trouble with Thomas. It's just another text that you can't date, a text known for its gnostic context.

You have missed out on some discussion. Read Galatians and show me where James, Cephas and John are christians. While you're there show me where the people that Paul was harrassing while he was still a conservative Jew were christians. The only thing that we learn about the pillars is that they didn't believe the same sort of stuff Paul did and that they were happy to get rid of him off to the gentiles.

I didn't relate John to Paul. I tried to indicate that John was written much later than Paul, as was Mark.

Chinese whispers.

You see it as skimpy. What is it exactly that's skimpy?

While you're there can you tell me exactly what the Satyricon's satire is based upon? I would argue that we don't even know who this Petronius Arbiter was and we don't know when the Satyricon was written, so we are hopeless at understanding the full satire of the text because we cannot contextualize it in time and therefore its intellectual background.

As to be expected. You abnegate your responsibility. A substantive position must be always able to express the evidence it is based on.

You have stories and you are trying to look behind them. You can't because of t heir opaqueness, just as you can't look behind the stories in the Satyricon.

The only possible insult is my descriptive "sit on your A". I'll leave you with most of it again, because you haven't dealt with it and I think you need to.

Where is the evidence, Chris?


spin

Solitary Man

Alright, Mr. Hoffman,

Luke's census cannot be reconciled with what we know about censuses taken by Romans. It appears that Luke modeled his census from historical events and recast them as history to fit his story of Jesus.

Matthew's birth narrative is actually a theological treatise on Jesus as the new Moses. He wasn't arguing that such things really happened. He was making a point.

This is done in different ways. Tacitus, for instance, puts speeches into the mouths of Roman enemies to make a point. Sometimes, it's to praise so and so, and sometimes it's to show how noble the barbarians are in contrast with the degenerate Romans. Matthew is following the Jewish model and recasting history into theological arguments.

spin

Poof!


spin