Apikorus

Philo (ca. 20 BCE - 50 CE) was a strongly Hellenized Jew who lived outside Palestine, in Alexandria. It is inappropriate to associate with him any of the sectarian labels used to denote different branches of first century Palestinian Judaism.

During the Second Temple period we have a fair amount of extrabiblical literature (e.g. Maccabees, Sirach, Enoch, sectarian writings from Qumran, etc.), some of which bears on historical events (though often obliquely, as in the case of Qumran). The only real "historical" writings from the era come from Philo and Josephus.

gnosis92

Ehrman pointed out in the Ehrman V Craig debate (Craig gets spanked)

historians cannot definitely establish what happened, only what probably happened. Historians of antiquity have to deal with difficulties such as documentary evidence, that more contemporary historians do not face. So what probably happened around 30CE that resulted by around 70CE the existence of Christians (some burned by Nero as far away as Rome) who believed their founder was crucified (a most shameful death), and a body of documents that reflect this belief, when attempting to understand and reconstruct the past?


Good question. Bart Ehrman and Domonic Crossan and Robert Funk have written books first outlining their historical-critical metholodgy (independent attestation, dissimilarity, and contextual credibility) and applied this to the gospels, and they largely agree that the material in Q has been and can be traced to a historical Jesus (contextual credibility, multiple attestation), and that he was betrayed (dissimilarity, multiple attestation), and crucified under Pontius Pilate (all three).

Josepheus, the dead sea scrolls and sociology and anthropology, particularly the study of folk culture, archaelogy, comparative religion, study of second temple Judaism, can provide us the world of second temple palestine, and hence what is or constitutes contextual credibility.

Roger Pearse

Looking at this idea, is there any *practical* difference between it and holding the view that history is mostly bunk?

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Doug Shaver

You haven't answered my question yet.

Didymus

Those criteria were developed by the Jesus Seminar for the purpose of determining which of Jesus' imputed sayings were "authentic." They were meant to be applied to Jesus' sayings, not to the gospels as a whole. So I'm not sure how or why you're applying those criteria to supposedly historical gospel elements like the betrayal and the crucifixion.

You seem to be saying that all the historical/ pseudo-historical elements in the gospels have somehow been "certified" as authentic by Ehrman, Crossan and Funk. Some have, but many have not. And even if they were, you're making a specious appeal to authority.

The evangelicals are right about one thing: tautological thinking is a pervasive problem with the Jesus Seminar. In a nutshell, they ascertain the authenticity of Jesus' words by arriving at a consensus regarding what Jesus would have said. How do we know what Jesus would have said? By looking at his authentic sayings! Right.

Funk, in particular, follows the Jesus Seminar practice of sorting out the sayings in order of their probable authenticity. He does not give all of them equal weight, and he dismisses many as non-authentic, as does Ehrman. Although he doesn't apply the same criteria with regard to Jesus' acts, he takes the same approach in "The Acts of Jesus; What did Jesus really do?"

The contextual credibility of the Q sayings is certainly an open question, especially if you're adducing that they could have been uttered by an Aramaic-speaking Jesus in Galilee. Many scholars think these Greek sayings are more consistent with the Hellenistic philosophy of the Cynics than with Judiac traditions. They could have been uttered by any Greek speaker in the Eastern Mediterranean.

As to "multiple attestation," what are you talking about? (You start with "independent attestation," but then switch to "multiple attestation." Which is it?) I don't think Ehrman, Crossan and Funk consider plagiarism to be "multiple attestation." The sayings that appear in Mt. and Lk. are derived from Mark and Q. The acts are lifted from Mark. Where is the multiple attestation?

(I personally find the apologetical use of terms like "witness" and "attestation" to be deceptive. I realize that apologists claim a special vocabulary. But those terms nonetheless imply that there is direct evidence where there is only hearsay.)

Where is the "multiple attestation" for Jesus' betrayal? Paul's "delivered up" in 1 Cor 11.23 can be interpreted in a number of ways. But even if you take it to mean "betrayed," the fact that the betrayal tradition was advanced by Mark three decades later, and Mt. and Lk. after that, does not amount to "multiple attestation," unless you're defining "multiple attestation" as "multiple dependent references," e.g., plagiarism. As to "dissimilarity," that criterion applies to sayings, not to events. So it's meaningless with regard to the betrayal and to the crucifixion under Pilate.

You've given us quite a bit of impressive verbiage. But how does it address Doug's question regarding evidence for the ordinary claims made by the gospels?

Didymus

gnosis92

What do you think is known, with reasonable certainty, about the gospels that tells us we should believe their ordinary claims?

The Gospel of Mark was the first written, in greek, although he makes it clear jesus spoke aramaic, and woudl translate armaic terms into greek for his audience, and most scholars date its writing to the end of 70's, with matthew and luke using mark and q around 80-90 AD. john's gospel in the version we have is probably the last gospel written around 90-100ad, although it may have used earlier sources such as a signs gospel.

a fragment of john's gospel was found in egypt and dated 120 AD.

the jesus seminar are a group of scholars that believes that certain sayings and deeds do trace back to jesus, which they color red or pink or gray.

Solo

I don't like the "gospel-by-comittee method" of the Seminar either, but "tautology" does not describe it.

Many of the peasant sayings of the village where my dad was born (north-western Bohemia) are consistent with the Hellenistic philosophy of the Cynics.

Agreed.


How do you know it was Paul's ? His table manners' lecture seems to have been interrupted by someone who wanted him to talk about something else.

Jiri

gnosis92

dissimalarity can apply to events, since events that contradict a thelogical belief of a perfect sinless man would qualify, for example, jesus being considered insane and rejecting his own family members.

multiple independent attestations would be ideal - paul's "on the night he was betrayed" and mark and john's depiction of judas as being the one who handed jesus over to be crucified would be an example if mark, john, and paul wrote independently of one another.

Doug Shaver

Yeah, so? I am aware of no correlation between the language in which a document is written and the probability that its contents are true.

That Mark's gospel was the first one written has some bearing on its credibility relative to the other gospels, but only relative to them. It has nothing to do with the prima facie credibility of any of them.

I don't recall Mark saying anything to that effect, and it would have been superfluous if he had. We already know that any Jew growing up in Galilee would almost certainly have spoken Aramaic as his first language. But this again has nothing to do with whether we have good reason to believe anything Mark wrote about Jesus.

How does any of this establish any probability that anything in them is historically accurate?

You make it sound like it could not have been written as late as 125. Its date of composition is not known to anywhere near that degree of certainty. The most we can say with reasonable confidence is that it was written sometime during the second century or, just possibly, the late first.

I have great respect for their scholarly judgment, but with all due respect, I think they are mistaken.

gnosis92

what specific issues do you have with their methodology, given if you've taken the time to read their rather thick books.

well if mark's gospel was written 70 cd about events 30 ce, and secular authors like pliny and tacitus describe that there were christians who believed in things that match up with what mark says, the likelyhood of a document written 40 years after the fact being completely fictious is less historically plausible.

here's one example i found from the bible gateway

Mark 5:41
He took her by the hand and said to her, "Talitha koum!" (which means, "Little girl, I say to you, get up!" ).
Mark 5:40-42 (in Context) Mark 5 (Whole Chapter)