Toto

Would you like to produce an actual scholarly work in which the probabilities are calculated for the existence of Jesus, based on the gospels?

Why can you not explain the gospel Jesus as a fictional character the same way you can explain any fictional character?

I think we're back to square one.

ApostateAbe

I don't think that probabilities of history are a matter of numbers (inferences from evidence based on written language is not translatable to quantities of likelihood), but it is a matter of purely relativistic and largely subjective evaluations--this explanation is more probable than that one. You have no percentage for the probability that Socrates was a human being, but you know that such a conclusion is higher in probability than the probability that Socrates was a fictional character (not that Socrates is a close analogy to Jesus). Almost all other historical conclusions are likewise.

You can explain Jesus as a fictional character, but how does that explanation compare to the explanation that Jesus was a human doomsday cult leader? I think the main problem would be that gospels follow the patterns of cult myths (filled with moralism, sectarianism and all manner of arguments for religious adherence) much more closely than the patterns of fiction.

Steven Carr

I really doubt if you are going to get anywhere with somebody who compares the Gospels to Sense and Sensibility, or Northanger Abbey, and claims a True Historian would do the same to find out facts about Emma or Mr. Darcey.

Gosh, Emma was embarrassed by her plain speaking in the Novel.

So it must have happened , by the criterion of embarrassment.

Who would have thought that Jane Austen had access to modern tape recorders when she recorded the dialogue that appeared in Emma?

ApostateAbe

Both Toto and I compared the gospels to Pride and Prejudice, though Toto thought that it was an especially good example, and I never actually claimed that a true historian would find out facts about Emma or Mr. Darcey. Every comparison is limited to a specific purpose, and you shouldn't lose sight of that purpose in your reactionary rhetoric. Sometimes, you know, cosmologists compare the expanding universe to an expanding balloon, but I don't think it is such a good idea to counter the comparison by saying, "Oh, you must think that the universe will eventually get too big and pop!"

Toto

No, you avoided the question of how a historian could actually derive any historical information about Jesus from the gospels.

ApostateAbe

Sorry that I missed that question. Where was that question presented?

Toto

That is the fundamental question. It is implied in the comparison of the gospels to a fictional work.

What answer do you have?

ApostateAbe

Well, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't accuse me of avoiding questions that are not actually presented, because I am happy to answer all questions that are actually on the table. My answer would be that historians would typically use criteria of authenticity. For example, Bart Ehrman as you know would apply to the gospels the criteria of contextual credibility, dissimilarity, and independant attestation. I prefer criteria that are broader in applicability--explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, less ad hoc, and consistency with accepted beliefs. I know I have said such a thing dozens of times in the past, and it causes me to be puzzled and irritated that you claim that I have avoided the question.

Toto

But all of these criteria are dodgy. The criteria of embarrassment and contextual credibility can used to show that the characters in Pride and Prejudice are historical.

You said previouslyBut you haven't given a reason for preferring your human doomsday cult leader explanation to the fictional/mythical character. One would expect a failed cult leader's cult to go away, instead of thriving, but a fictional character doesn't have that drawback.

The gospels, as has been noted many times, have many similarities to Greco-Roman popular fiction, and also many references to the Hebrew scriptures, but not a lot in common with historical narrative.

ApostateAbe

I think Ehrman's criteria are appropriate only among those who agree that the early Christian claims reflect early Christian beliefs, not fiction, which is a presumption that I take to be self-evident, and the theory of the gospels as fiction would probably seem too improbable and obscure for consideration by scholars, but such objections are why I advocate more generalized criteria.
I gave my reasons for preferring a human doomsday cult leader explanation to the fictional character, and in your immediate response you claim that I haven't given any reason for preferring my human doomsday cult leader explanation to the "fictional/mythical" character. I should just stop being so defensive and take it for granted that you will accuse me of just about anything.
Christianity had that drawback, one way or the other, as we can see very directly in Mark 9:1, Mark 13:30, John 21:20-23, 1 Thessalonians 4:15, and 2 Peter 3:3-8. Christians were embarrassed by the failed reputed doomsday prophecies of the reputed founder of their religion, and that point is on the face of the immediate evidence without concern for whether or not Jesus existed as a human being. Whichever explanation you may take for early Christians overcoming that embarrassment central to their cult, it is the same explanation that I may take, but the explanation that I prefer is that Christians re-interpreted the deadlines spoken by Jesus (i.e. "generation" is an age, "come with power" is the transfiguration, and the "kingdom of God" is in heaven). It is more rare but not insuperable that a doomsday cult would survive its failed prophecies and become religions. That is precisely what happened with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and roughly what happened with the many churches inspired by William Miller (Seventh-Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses).
I have heard the arguments made in favor of the gospels being Greco-Roman fiction. Doug Shaver advocates the tragedy genre theory, I believe. Not that I deny that the Christian gospel myths have a few key things in common with a fictional narrative (fictions are typically narratives of people's lives until their deaths), but I also think there are very good reasons why such a hypothesis of that genre is typically not advocated to its fullest extent. The most obvious counterpoints to the hypothesis of the ancestral gospel as a Greco-Roman tragic play would be that an ending with a resurrection for the hero is no tragedy, tragic heroes are by definition always fallible and far from perfect, and long moralistic religious sermons are not seen in tragic plays, nor are sexless underclass heroes, nor are religious sectarian rants by the hero. On the plus side, it is better than no alternative theory at all. You didn't specific your own reasons for advocating the fiction genre of the gospels, but I think it is a step in the right direction, and I hope you also choose some criteria to help make your arguments.