Toto

This camel won't be able to get far. The historical Jesus that Bart Ehrman believes in was a wacky end-times prophet, and a failed prophet at that. He didn't rise from the dead and you would never want to follow his religion.

Juststeve

Toto:

If your question was addressed in any part to me I can assure you that as an atheist I have no interest in proving that God exists or that Jesus was his baby boy. I'm more interested in accounting for the advent of the Christian movement in the first century C.E. The existence of a flesh and blood Jesus at about that time is in my judgment more plausible than the alternative explanations.

Steve

spin

Ehrman is a philologist and not a historian per se. Biblical scholars are generally not historians. They are usually lay people meddling in the field of history when they talk about historical inquiry. The inability to contemplate the non-existence of Jesus is simply a symptom of their inability to grasp historical methodology when it comes to things they believe in. History is not a popularity contest decided by what is the vogue. It was popular in the past to think that the sun revolved around the earth, so the notion that the contrary was true would have been seen by the vast majority as being on the fringes. The notion that mitochondria were prokaryotic invaders, as was the cell nucleus itself, was also once seen as on the fringes of science, but it is today accepted by the scientific community. When non-historians such as biblical scholars make statements about this or that being on the fringes of historical inquiry, it is merely the vogue in their insular community. And historians tend to avoid matters concerning biblical studies due to the lack of tenable source materials for historical purposes.

Can you do history with the Robin Hood corpus or the King Arthur corpus? There may indeed be a historical basis for one or both of these figures, but I can see no way to decide. Can you? How can one take records such as the gospels and use them as historical sources for the events they narrate, when there is little hope of ever knowing who wrote them, for whom, where and for what purpose?

The gospels were written generations after Paul's time. Paul, being the earliest source for Jesus information, tells us that he got his gospel information through revelation from god (Gal 1:11-12). He never met his Jesus. This shows us that it is possible that the Jesus tradition may have started with Paul and developed until it was written down by the earliest Marcan community. I cannot say, but then again, neither can biblical scholars. They have as much information as I have and no more.

It's easy to see that traditions can develop with or without a historical core. Non-historical narratives exist regarding Alexander the Great for example; they also exist for the eponymous founder of the Ebionite movement. Alexander existed; Ebion didn't. However, various church fathers dispute with the "ideas" of Ebion starting with Tertullian and going on to the time of Jerome and the Ebion tradition grew. There was much more interest in Jesus than in Ebion, so Jesus was much more fertile for the christian imagination and infancy narratives are developed, letters written by Jesus to Abgar. Even the gospels we have today evince tradition development. We have no criteria for deciding from that tradition what is historical if anything.

The earliest references to Jesus in non-biblical sources are found in Josephus, who wrote around 90 CE, so Josephus is not a helpful source. Besides, the infamous Testimonium Flavianum shows clear signs of christian efforts, casting doubt on the brief contorted reference to "the brother of Jesus called christ, James by name". There is no earlier non-biblical record and even this is dubious.

With sources like those available, there is no testable history to be found.

Historically, whether Jesus existed or not has not been determined. Those indulging in historical Jesus research are either being speculative or self-stimulating.

That Ehrman believes that Jesus was real is the opinion of a philologist.

(Note: I neither believe Jesus existed, nor do I believe he didn't exist. I simply don't have the evidence to decide, just as I cannot decide whether Robin Hood was a real person or not. There is a wall of silence for Robin Hood: the data just isn't available before the time of William Langland. This is also the case with Jesus there is a wall of silence before the time of Paul and we know that Paul didn't meet him nor did he get his gospel from other people -- but from god.)


spin

aa5874

And how did Jews manage to worship his wacky-end-times failed prophet as a God?

ThermalCry

I believe both Martin and Ehrman, who are good buddies, believe there was a historical Jesus at the root of a Jesus Cult/Movement. I have listened to Martin's NT course, and read 2 of Ehrmans books, and they both seem to think that the stories recorded in the bible have been so 'mythologized' that there are very few historical facts to learn about the real Jesus therein. They do believe things like Jesus being crucified by Pilate and other 'historical' staples.

Toto

My question was addressed to Jonathon, who doesn't seem to know anything about the subject matter, but still thinks that he can prove to us that Jesus existed. And, if he is following his Mormon "scholar" friend, he can then move on to other sources showing what sort of person Jesus was, and how he came to America...

Maybe I should just let him start his "proof" and see how far he gets.

:eating_popcorn:

No Robots

To my knowledge, there is no historian or historiographer who holds that Christ's historicity is untenable, uncertain or unknowable.

The application of historical-critical methods to the question of Christ's historicity is part of a general misunderstanding of history as science, which it is not, as Constantin Brunner makes clear:

History is no science, for there is no psychological historiography and there can be none because everyone writes under the influence of his interests, his party.

The only valid method for investigating the historicity of Christ is the hermeneutic examination of the relevant documents. This is literary inquiry, not scientific inquiry; and there is no literary analysis of the documents that supports skepticism of the historicity of Christ. Indeed, taken as a whole and placed within their proper cultural context, they provide utterly compelling proof of Christ's historicity.

aa5874

Your statement is contradictory. You definitely have interest in the existence of Jesus.

It seems that you do not believe he was the son of God but you have a FAITH based belief in the existence of your OWN fabricated Jesus.

Please state the source of antiquity that describes your Jesus whoever he was.

It is FAR MORE PLAUSIBLE that Jesus was just an invented story that people of antiquity simply believed to be true.

And there is no story in antiquity of a Jesus Messiah who was an itinerant preacher with very little followers.

The itinerant Jesus Messiah is pure fiction.

spin

Can you indicate any historian who has written an analysis of the subject in the last ten years?

I understand why you cannot face the notion of ordinary historical methodology. That's why you have to seek recourse in a philosopher, not a historian, in order to obfuscate the issue.

I agree that history is not science. But neither is it literary analysis per se.

How do you decide what the relevant documents are??

Arbitrary approaches to history result in arbitrary conclusions. You have spent your time here refusing to do history. I don't expect you to change now.

A literary inquiry yields literary results -- which are irrelevant to history.

And you have no way of defending yourself against the "influence of [your] interests". You merely turn your back on good historical methodology for reasons that don't allow you to proceed with your alternative method.

Wake up when you want to do history.

I hope you enjoy these long walks off short piers.

As noted above arbitrary approaches, such as the one you espouse here, lead to arbitrary conclusions. They have nothing to do with history as have your recitals of Brunner, Kant or Donald Duck.


spin

spin

You can believe whatever your little heart fancies, but what can you demonstrate? As with everyone else on the subject: nothing.


spin