TedM

While there is value in trying to extract truth from 'small' details and nuances, it may be that the truth is most easily found from looking at the big picture--ie the facts that are most apparent from a historical and human nature standpoint.

For example, if a dozen people testify in court on how a man was murdered, there may be a dozen different descriptions, but few would conclude that the man was in fact NOT murdered. Perhaps, just perhaps, the same -hands off- objectivity can be applied to a HJ when one looks at the most agreed-upon important claims. This is no foolproof approach and one can always argue against any given point.

I succumbed tonight to thinking about this for a couple of hours, and no doubt have overlooked some biggies, but thought I'd throw this out here anyway for discussion. However, I intend to not engage much if any in the discussion. I simply don't have the time. So, you can say 'screw you Ted' right off the bat, or take it for what it is: a thought exercise..

The Top 10 (in order of relative importance--most important listed first):

The big picture: Why Jesus was a historical religious leader who walked the earth in the early 1st century, and was witnessed/known by real people

1. The surviving tradition claims or strongly implies he was, with no clear record of early contrary views despite quite a few documents having survived or been found.

2. The diversity of early traditions are more likely to be applied to a human being with an under-developed theology than a divine being created in order to answer theological questions.

3. The fairly large number of relatively early records with supposed biographical information about the historical Jesus.

4. The emphasis on a Jewish Jesus-Messiah crucifixion despite being an embarrassment, and the rising from the dead, with little OT basis in prophecy for either.

5. The known existence of human Jewish Messiah claimants at the same time in history vs the unknown existence of other non-human/non-earthly Jewish Messiah claimants, in conjunction with the expectation within Judaism for the Messiah to live and rule on EARTH.

6. The Big Bang beginning of the Christian movement in Judea (the 'superstition' that 'again broke out' not only in Judaea.., Acts, Paul's account of appearances, first Church in Jerusalem). Something happened that was exciting to people and it had to do with belief in a resurrection.

7. The relatively obscure and limited location of his ministry, with many seemingly unnecessary details --even 'facts' contrary to expectations from Messianic prophecy, as opposed to a grand ministry in Judea.

8. The baptism roots of the early Jesus.

9. The 'brothers of the Lord' problem. The absence of any surviving tradition of something other than a biological kinship between the very earliest Christian leader in Jerusalem--James--and the later claim of such relationships found in the gospels, Paul, Josephus, and other writings. It is hard to believe that something so profound as the first Christians being called 'brothers of the Lord' would be transformed into something totally different. And, who better to lead the first Church than his own brother or close relative?

10. We should not expect more EXTERNALLY than what we have given the destruction of Jerusalem, the minimal geographical and chronological extent of his ministry, the competing religious leaders/religions, and the specificity and political nature of documents that have survived. The absence of EXTERNAL evidence to support a HJ is sufficiently explained by these issues.

Have fun,
Ted

Steven Carr

And just why did the Romans not immediately kill the brother, when he became the leader of this movement and started saying that his brother had escaped death and was still the overall leader and the Messiah?

Toto

A few of these jumped out at me

Apologists can only claim this by defining "early" to mean "a few generations later."

If this trivial little turn of phrase, of an uncertain meaning, makes it to your top ten list - I think that is a comment on your list. There not enough here to keep the conversation going.

aa5874

Virtually all dated Text by Paleograhy or C-14 show that Jesus was NON-HUMAN or acted non-human.

Your claim is unsubstantiated. You have NO source for your claim and it is nothing more than convenient rhetoric.

The Jesus character has a LARGE AMOUNT Mythological stories. The Canon alone contains FOUR myth Fables where Jesus is described as the Son of a Ghost and God the Creator.

ALL the stories in the Canon about Jesus are Total fiction. If Jesus was deemed a false prophet it is not likely that there would even be a trial. He and his followers would most likely be AMBUSHED and Exterminated WITHOUT trial like Theudas the Magician, who had his HEAD CUT OFF and the Egyptian prophet of whom 400 Followers were killed by Roman soldiers.

HJers don't even claim THEIR Jesus was the Messiah. HJ was a little known preacher man.

You completely forgot who HJ was. HJ was Backwater and probably semi-ILLITERATE.

Not one writer of antiquity used your "Big Bang" for the preacher man for over 400 years. Eusebius used Fogeries in Antiquities not Tacitus.

You forget HJ was a little known preacher. The NT is not a source for the preacher man just a source for the Son of God.

If you baptise a preacher man then NOTHING at all like in the NT would happen.

You forget HJ was a little known preacher man. The unknown preacher WAS NOT LORD and Messiah.

Well, Josephus wrote ABOUT Jesus son of Ananus and Jesus son of Sapphias. Jesus son of Ananus was declared to be a mad-man and Jesus the Son of Sapphias was the leader of a gang of robbers.

The absence of external evidence suggests Jesus was NOT historical since virtually all the evidence that randomly survived described Jesus as the Son of a Holy Ghost or Acted like one.

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tanya

Thank you Ted, for this list.

One could interpret your first point in either of two ways:

a. There exists no surviving document from that era contesting the existence of jesus; or

b. Existing documents from that generation (C.E. 10-40) wholly support the claim of jesus' earthly existence.

I would agree wth (a), but dispute (b), citing Philo of Alexandria. I find it peculiar that several forum members, now including Dr. Ehrman, cite Josephus as a contemporary biographer, attesting to an earthly existence for Jesus. Am I a contemporary of Amelia Earhart? Could I be cited as an eyewitness of her accomplishments?

"quite a few documents"....yes, but when were they composed, Ted? Isn't the absence of any credible evidence of his existence, during the first century, the elephant in the room? Is it just a coincidence, then, Ted, that none of our abundance of documents date from the first century?

Atheos

Nice list, but every point in it is easily debatable in my opinion. It makes for cumbersome discourse to go after every point in every post, so I'll just address point #1 for now.

All it takes is one charismatic person to start convincing people of something and within a decade or so you can have a large base of people talking about it. We have abundant historical evidence of this sort of thing happening. Were there actual physical golden plates in a mountain discovered by Joseph Smith or did he make all that stuff up?

The "Jesus" figure starts as an ambiguous person (the one in Paul's earliest writings) without specific detail. Nobody argues that he never existed because they don't have a clue where and when he might have existed. Those details don't become part of the tradition until decades later after anyone who might have survived long enough to be able to say "well I was there and I never saw him" was still around to make the counter claim. Even so, I've lived in the same town now for 25 years and if someone told me there was an obscure itinerant preacher running around gathering disciples back in '86 in this town I wouldn't be so bold as to call them a liar.

The evidence is consistent with the possibility that the character developed over time from a vague notion of a possibly fictitious figure into a much more specific personage over many decades.

In short, point #1 is every bit as consistent with an entirely fictitious Jesus as it is with an historical one.

sotto voce

This is not very coherent, or true. For one thing, there are very many ancient (and indeed modern) authors who have under-developed theology or philosophy, and today have no significant following at all; the tendency is for the most developed theories to have the greatest influence. The diversity of views of the work of Adam Smith or Karl Marx is witness to that.

A controversial figure tends to spawn a great range of opinions. Napoleon Bonaparte is a case in point, as is Adolf Hitler, or Charles Darwin, idolised and demonised simultaneously. According to the record, Jesus was predicted to be just such a figure, and claimed to be just such a figure; so diversity of opinion tends to confirm his historicity. Absence of diversity would tend to oppose his historicity. Moreover, there are many works deemed spurious that 'borrow' the authority of Jesus, even if they contradict his teaching, which fact tends to confirm his historicity.

Now it would surely be either naive or disingenuous to suppose that a divine being created in order to answer theological questions must be non-controversial. If any figure, divine or otherwise, says that it is wrong to have adulterous thoughts, as well as to commit adultery, one can hardly expect this thought to go unopposed, if one lives in this world, in 'this vale of tears'.

In any case, it is great understatement to say that Jesus merely answered theological questions. He did not sit debating Pharisees in Jerusalem, nor did he go to the Areopagus to consider the finer points of Greek thought. That could never have had the effect on ordinary people that Jesus evidently did. The evidence is, as it is today, that Jesus changed the way people behaved. The diversity of 'early traditions' is therefore almost certainly tradition that is too late, and is due to the action of people who did not appreciate the change in the way people behaved.

Kapyong

Gday,

It's longer than a few decades before those details become widely known.

Even if the Gospels were written from 70CE onwards, the Christian community as a whole doesn't seem to know about them until mid-late 2nd century.

The writings from 70CE until about 130-150CE or so show no knowledge of the Gospels or the stories therein.

The early epistles, the Didakhe, 1 Clement, Barnabas, G.Thomas, Hermas and various others show no knowledge of the Gospels.

Furthermore - knowledge of Jesus' life stories spreads at the same time as knowledge of the Gospels - arguing that all the details of Jesus life only became known FROM the Gospels, which happened around early-mid 2nd century.

Details such as the empty tomb seem unknown to Christian writers until about mid 2nd century, many examples of this can be found.

After mid-late 2nd century the pictue changes dramatically, and Christian writings become full of detail of Jesus' life - only once the Gospels are widely known.

The gap between Jesus and wide-spread knowledge of his life story is actually a good century or so.

Exactly!
How COULD someone EVER KNOW Jesus did NOT exist?
Only someone who knew EVERYONE in Jesus in the 30s, and who heard the Jesus stories.

Could such a person ever exist?
Firstly - who could know everyone in Jerusalem? Quite difficult.

Secondly - when would they have heard the stories?
The Gospels only became widely known in early-mid 2nd century or so.
After 2 wars with Romans, and many deaths, a century after the events, when Jerusalem had been destroyed, and the Jews killed or dispersed.

Thirdly -
Why WOULD such a person debunk a story?
Why would they care?


Kapyong

jdl

What makes you think this in the case of 1 Clement? It seems to me to be dependent on Matthew.

Joseph

graymouser

Honestly, this is why I feel like most mythicists generally don't understand ancient history. Relative to when Jesus lived, we have a ton of very early documents. There are whole periods when we don't have substantial contemporary documentation. For instance, our primary historians of Nero are Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio - none of whom were writing within 50 years of that emperor's life, and all of whom had biases given how Nero was remembered. Relative to virtually all of his contemporaries, save only emperors and a few other famous figures, Jesus of Nazareth is simply tremendously well-documented, and documented relatively early.

The meaning is only uncertain in the minds of people who have tried to make it uncertain to serve their agenda. This has required, as we've seen, people like Earl Doherty to invent religious orders out of whole cloth to try and explain away the plain meaning of the phrase. It's really an extreme example of a mythicist weakness.