ApostateAbe

I use the word, "absolute," to be a quantity of probability that is independent (such as a 50%-60% range), as opposed to "relative," where one explanation for the same evidence is judged to be more probable than an alternative explanation. They are the same two words used to categorize the dating of geological strata. An "absolute" date is a certain X million years ago, and a "relative" date is that a stratum above is younger than a stratum below. "Relative" values don't have numbers--only "more than..." or "less than..."

aa5874

This is clearly not true at all. It must be that there is some evidence or information available that has led people to claim Jesus was MYTHOLOGICAL.

It is because of Matthew 1.18, 1.23, 4.1-10, 9.6, Mark 9.2, 16.6, Luke 1.35, John 1, Acts 1.9, Galatians 1 and many more passages why people have considered that Jesus was not a person of history but was MYTHOLOGICAL.

The type of evidence do exist for the MYTH, none can be found for the historicists.

You certainly cannot deny that Jesus was described as the offspring of the Holy Ghost of God and a Virgin who walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended to heaven..

You certainly cannot deny that such is the description of a mythological entity.

That is the type of evidence available about Jesus. See the NT, Church and Apocryphal writings.

ApostateAbe

Is there direct or indirect evidence that Josephus got all of his information about the Essenes exclusively from Philo? If you have evidence, then there is good reason to make such a conclusion. If Josephus got his information from someone else--maybe from Essenes themselves and his personal experiences with them--then the conclusion does not follow. Josephus does not seem to cite his sources so much, the same as so many other ancient historians, so it makes analysis difficult.

PhilosopherJay

Hi ApostateAbe,

Thanks for your quick response.

I guess we have disagreements about both the interpretation of the passage in John and the interpretation of the Little Apocalypse passage in Mark.

As for the passage in the Gospel of John, I don't see a relation to Mark's Little Apocalypse. If we wish to relate it to another text, I think it fits in much better with the Gospel of Thomas and its second line - "1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death." Perhaps the beloved disciple is Thomas as theorized by Thomas Charlesworth in "The Beloved Disciple" (or via: amazon.co.uk). Personally, I think the beloved disciple was originally Mary Magdalene, then switched to Thomas and John as later cover stories to disguise the heterosexual romantic origins of the Passion tale.

In any case, we can hopefully agree that it is not very clear that John is responding to Mark's Apocalypse in this passage and such an interpretation is only a possibility.

On the main issue you take this position:

You apparently disagree with the majority of writers who see this as a reference to the 1st or 2nd Roman-Jewish Wars. You disagree because the prediction seems to be on a worldwide scale with signs in the heavens and talks about worldwide deaths and an invasion directly from heaven.

The Little Apocalyps begins with Jesus talking about the destruction of the "the Great Buildings." He is apparently talking about the Temple Complex in Jerusalem.
The apostles ask him, "when will this be, and what will be the sign when these things are all to be accomplished?". This is really two questions: 1) When will this be, and 2) what will be the sign that this is going to happen. It was a common belief that the Gods gave signs when some great catastrophe was going to happen as a warning to the faithful to escape. If you knew the signs to could take some personal action to escape.

Jesus, answering the second question first, names these signs
1) Many will come in my name
2) you hear of wars and rumors of wars
3) nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom
4) there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines
5) they will deliver you up to councils; and you will be beaten in synagogues; and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them
6) the gospel must first be preached to all nations.
7) And brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death;
8) when you see the desolating sacrilege set up where it ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains...
9) in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be
10) if the Lord had not shortened the days, no human being would be saved; but for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.
11) False Christs and false prophets will arise and show signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.
12) after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
13) And then they will see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the angels, and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
14) when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

Up till this point, we have Jesus answering the second question from the apostles about the signs that will come before the temple complex will be destroyed. Jesus now adds this about the signs, "this generation will not pass away before all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away."

He then goes on to answer the first question that the apostles asked, "
But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

I would make the case that there is significant ambiguity here. For 1-11, Jesus is talking about a sign or signs which he calls a tribulation. In 12, 13, and 14, he is talking about the apocalypse, when presumably no stone will be on no stone in the temple complex. So the tribulation will be the signs or the events in 1-11. These seem to describe the Jewish-Roman War, although it is hard to tell if the references are to the first or second one, or both. These seem to have happened and so the writer reflects on them as in the past in 10. Note that even 11, the false prophets trying to lead the elect astray seem to be happening in the present. Technically it is after the tribulation, but not the apocalypse. However 12-14, the apocalypse are in the future. These are the worldwide events that will be in the future.

When Jesus refers to "all these things" in his statement "this generation will not pass away before all these things take place," it makes the most sense to take it that he is referring to the past events in 1-10 and the present event in 11. He is not referring to 11-14. If we do this, we get a date of either post 70 or post 137. If we do not read it this way, but read 12-14 as part of the series 1-11, then we may say that it is a genuine prediction being made prior to 70.

The only question is if we can eliminate the second Jewish-roman War because the writer says that all these things will happen before this generation will pass away. If the writer is assuming that Jesus is speaking circa 30 C.E. than 137 would be 107 years later. If the writer is assuming that the life span of a generation is 120 years, then the last hearer of the generation has not passed away. He would get the idea of a generational lifespan of 120 years from Genesis 6:3 Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

Thus we cannot eliminate the idea that the writer might be referring to the Second Jewish-Roman War (133-137).

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

maryhelena

The above quotes from Josephus are related to aspects of the Essenes that are different to what Philo wrote. Where did Josephus get his information from - well, if one takes what Rachel Elior has to say re finding no mention of Essenes in any Hebrew or Aramaic writing from the relevant time periods - then I think we can quite easily say that Josephus got all this extra info re the Essenes right out of his very own head....

Toto

It is a red herring as far as this thread is concerned.

Evasion? I can't know all of the motives of every mythicist. All I know is that it is possible to construct a case for mythicism without anti-Christian animus. So I don't see the relevance of such animus, even if it exists.

Sure.

I've already moved ApostateAbe's thread on this topic to Elsewhere. He has so far failed to prove his case. You can join in if you think you have something to add.

It appears that historicists are so lacking in real proof that they can only engage in baseless speculation about motives or clearly invalid comparisons to creationists. It just gets tiresome.

ApostateAbe

There are several things that strike me as not quite right with the reasoning.

For one thing, Josephus is not the kind of writer who pulls things out of his hind end and writes them down. He is considered to be relatively trustworthy. What would be the motivation for inventing things about the Essenes?

Next, arguments from silence have a very limited application, and it is often misapplied, because many people don't understand the significance of the fact that any writing in such an ancient time that wasn't carved into stone or well-preserved such as in mud or a buried bottle would be lost to history if it wasn't copied time and again generation after generation by groups interested in preserving the history (mainly Christian churches). The argument that Philo and/or Josephus invented the Essenes based on that argument from silence strikes me as sorta out of touch.

If a single scholar promotes an idea that isn't accepted by anyone else in the field, then that, all by itself, should be a red flag, in my opinion.

Rick Sumner

I suggest that there are at least some historicists whose assume that there was a historical Jesus for confessional reasons, whatever the evidence.

-Toto

And to say that "no one has seen Q" is a serious problem with Q is a good example. I'm reminded of the Alabama school board which inserted in a textbook on evolution (I believe it was) that "no one was there when evolution reputedly took place."

-Earl Doherty

Physician, heal thyself.

ApostateAbe

Philosopher Jay, cool, let me explain why I disagree with Charlesworth. Again, that quote of Jesus in John reads (with bolding): "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

Again, the quote of Jesus from Mark 9:1 reads, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

That quote is immediately following Mark 8:38, which reads (again with bolding), "If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."

In contrast, the quote from the gospel of Thomas reads, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

There is nothing about Jesus coming nor going before anyone tastes death. Instead, it seems to be spinning the apocalyptic prediction established in the synoptic gospels into an entirely different Gnostic direction.

Furthermore, for whatever reason, the gospel of Thomas is generally dated to the year 100 CE, and the gospel of John is generally dated to the year 90 CE, so it is just a little more unlikely that John sourced from Thomas.

I would also like to emphasize that the passage of 2 Peter 3:3-8 should be taken as further reinforcement of my interpretation: Jesus predicted a total apocalypse before "this generation" passes away and before "some of those standing here" taste death. The prophecy did not come true, Christians knew it, so they had to spin excuses for it, as seen in John 21:20-24 and 2 Peter 3:3-8.

Even without those two passages, I think it seems perhaps too ad hoc to propose that "all these things" was really referring to only items 1-10 and not 11-14. Do you really think that is the way Christians of the time would understand it?

"I prophesy that events A, B, C, D and E will occur, and this generation will not pass away before ALL THESE THINGS take place [and I trust you know that I am talking about A, B and C, not D or E, without me making that explicitly clear for you]."

Zaphod

And here, it seems to me, we have the crux of the issue. The apologetic HJ'ers come here expecting the MJ'ers, who are skeptical of the HJ for whatever manifold reasons they may hold, to simply forget the scientific underpinnings of any objective investigation into the matter.

Sorry, arnoldo, but the absence of evidence is a huge problem for the HJ, a problem that makes it difficult if not impossible to even justify an hypothesis that Jesus is, in fact, historical. In science, one needs to have previously generated evidence upon which to base a proper hypothesis. And one needs to have a database of information that is itself not corrupted, or indeed, not corruptible. Another problem for those who would stipulate a HJ.

That you, and others here and elsewhere do not seem to appreciate this demonstrates a lack of understanding of what scientific investigation is all about. On the other hand, a true and objective scientific approach to the issue is not traditionally done, is it? One certainly doesn't see any trace of such an approach for 99.9% of the Biblical scholars who have worked so assiduously over the centuries to promote and glorify the fabulously ornate house of cards that is (the Christian) religion.

While the absence of evidence is a HUGE problem, it is also one which is easily rectified. All one needs is a single reliable artifact which establishes the historicity of Jesus.

This is one atheist who is very hostile to religion who nevertheless would welcome such a fact, as readily as I would welcome an unambiguous demonstration from any living god they He or She actually exists. Sadly, it seems that like all the previous versions of well-described and widely-worshiped Godheads eventually rejected by humanity, the Bible gives a clear and richly-detailed testimony about yet another entity who gives absolutely no indication that it has ever existed.

All of this works against ApostateAbe's intangible 'relative probability scale', because the burden of proof for the HJ requires a lot more substance than anything that might be sussed out of an inherently-incoherent heavily-redacted internal document of the Christian religion.

The HJ hypothesis is almost as much of a non starter as the God Hypothesis itself- without evidence they both fail before they take their first step. Which means that the non historicity of Jesus Christ should be assumed as true until some real evidence is unearthed to disprove it. Just like Noah, Moses, and a hundred other well-limned personages from the Biblical text who are now assumed to be fictional.