Doug Shaver

OK, here are some excerpts from the critique I posted in another thread.

Nevertheless, the evidence for that hypothesis seems irrefutable.

Since no real scholar suggests that Christianity was created by a bunch of "Jewish fishermen, tax-collectors, sinners and harlots," this is a totally irrelevant observation.

It would be remarkable if it were true, but Brunner has been attempting to argue that it must be true because it is remarkable.

Yeah, that is true of the ones we know about for sure, like Josephus's Testimonium. That is why we know about them. But why assume that Christian forgers were always so clumsy? Do we have any reason at all to suppose that we have caught every forgery that any Christian ever committed?

We don't need to assume that that was their motive. A more likely motive would have been to provide evidence that the non-Christian world was aware of Christ as soon as awareness would have been likely.

Forgeries never do have that feel if they're done well.

That is not surprising if Paul had never heard of the Christ of the gospels.

No Robots

So cite some.

Quote some of these 'real scholars' then.

No, he's saying that every effect has an equivalent cause.


It's like the old joke:

Scout: "Injuns are soooo sneaky. There goes one!"
Tenderfoot: "I didn't see anything."
Scout: "See what I mean?"

This is totally incomprehensible. Did you dream it up or can you quote something in support?


See joke above.

I'm quite familiar with and quite unimpressed by all the mythicist flatulence about Paul's Christ preceding that of the Gospels.

Doug Shaver

Well, you've got me there. I haven't personally seen the evidence myself. I just infer its existence from the fact that every competent historical source I have read says it was happening.

For starters, I have found several articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica that contradict Brunner. My access is by subscription, so there is no point in my linking to them, but here is a typical quotation:

There are lots more where that came from, if you must see them.

If you can show me how to quote somebody not saying something, I'll do the best I can to follow your example.

Alternatively, you could prove me wrong by quoting some real scholars who do indeed suggest that Christianity was created by a bunch of "Jewish fishermen, tax-collectors, sinners and harlots."

Then he needs to offer a useful definition of "equivalent cause." Or else he can try to refute this argument: Christianity is a myth; therefore, it was caused by a myth.

I'm not claiming to see any Indians. Brunner is claiming that because we've killed every one that we have seen so far, there can't be any more Indians because Indians obviously are too stupid to hide.

Quote something? No, but I can offer a logical argument. I don't need an authority to justify everything I think.

Early Christians never had to address arguments about Jesus' historicity -- or, if they ever did, no record of that confrontation was preserved (and there is no good reason to suppose that it would have been). The issue that any apologist had to confront was over Jesus' character and teachings, not his existence. The gospels were thought to suffice to prove his existence, but skeptics would have asked, as they do now: If he was so impressive, why didn't anybody notice him? The apologists would have found it useful if they could produce documents showing that in fact he was noticed.

We know that some of them tried, because some of them were too stupid to hide. The fact that they even found it necessary to attempt such forgeries ought to tell us something about whatever genuine evidence might have existed in those days.

Paul's precedence over the gospels is not reasonably disputable. Only a bare handful of radical inerrantists claim that any gospel was written during Paul's lifetime. The only dispute is over whether Paul's Christ and the gospel Christ are one and the same.

No Robots

Reply to Doug Shaver

Regarding Jewish syncretism, here is what Brunner says:

Even those Jews who are influenced by the philosophical speculations of the "heathen" are still Jews, who refuse to let "revelation" be tampered with. For Philo, the prophets are the interpreters of God (Monarch. II, 222), in particular Moses, of course, the god and king of the Jewish nation (Vita Mos. p.105); he regards every individual syllable of the biblical books as inspired by God (De mutat.nom. I, 587); indeed, even the Septuagint, the 72 translators of the Bible into Greek, are held to be inspired (Mos. p. 140). Josephus indicates that it is self-evident to every Jew that he must give his life for the sake of the divine commandments (c.Ap. I,8). Thus even the philosophizing Jews of that time are united with the rabbis in taking their stand on pharisaic Judaism at its most severe and most scrupulous (and I would not speak any differently of the scrupulosity and rigour of any other community's notions). We can be absolutely certain that pagan myths did not succeed in gaining any foothold, even as a partial element or ingredient, in the consciousness of contemporary Jews, whether of those in Judaea or elsewhere in the world.

In the face of this you'll have to provide more than just the Britannica's say so.


The socially inferior status of the disciples is not under dispute by scholars. Here is a typical scholarly quotation:

Simple fishermen of Galilee, they were typical `AM HAARETZ' .... They were not necessarily great sinners who needed to be converted. (Later, such ones as Levi, the tax collector, Mary of Magdala and other public sinners would become disciples).

]A House Divided: The Parting of the Ways between Synagogue and Church (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Vincent Martin p. 39

This is a large part of Brunner's presentation. Here is an important passage:

For if we were acquainted with significantly unique and inspired deeds under the names, for instance, of Sargon, Romulus, Perseus, Theseus, Heracles, Siegfried and Tell, then I would have to believe, if I were not to betray my fundamental notion of resultant phenomena having a cause (for every cause must produce its specific result, and every result must have its specific cause). This would follow even if I had never so little to show of the causes involved, of the originators of such works; for, in cases like this, the minus in terms of the kind of experiential certainty which is supplied by sense-data and other external information is outweighed by the plus of inner conviction. Thus I would have to believe that these deeds had creative personalities behind them, and so I would call them Tell, Siegfried, Heracles, Theseus, Perseus, Romulus and Sargon, just as I call Shakespeare the author of the unmistakably distinctive literary marvels, pointing to a single originator, that go under his name, in spite of the fact that we have as little certain knowledge of the life of the man Shakespeare as of the life of the man Christ - nay, we have less.

All Brunner is saying that the passages in Suetonius and Tacitus regarding Christians are unlikely to be Christian forgeries because they are too subtle in comparison with other known early Christian forgeries, they fit in with the character of the writers and their texts, and they serve no obvious apologetic purpose.

I'll need something more than your say so on this.

It certainly is disputable. The Gospels as we have them are occasional writings drawn from oral transmission.

jakejonesiv

How did Brunner view the resurrection of Jesus?

Jake

No Robots

It was a self-willed spiritual resurrection, a fulfilled desire to be perpetually reborn in the hearts of men.

Doug Shaver

Brunner is proof-texting Philo and Josephus to support his thesis. I'll go with Britannica.

I didn't say it was. I said that real scholars do not claim that such people created Christianity.

Whatever its importance in other regards, it does not present a useful definition of "equivalent cause."

We can, and should, discuss the evidence for and against those particular passages being forgeries without making any assumptions about whether every Christian who ever forged anything was too stupid to do it well enough to avoid detection.

There is no good reason to suppose that the "Chrestus" to whom Suetonius referred was Jesus of Nazareth, so it makes no difference to me whether that was a forgery or not. As for Tacitus, assuming the authenticity of that passage, it proves nothing more than that during his lifetime some people, whom he deemed credible, believed a story that was making the rounds about Nero having persecuted Christians. Even supposing that the story was true, for Tacitus to pass it on implies nothing about the actual existence of Jesus of Nazareth.

Bull. Christian apologists have been getting off on persecution stories from Day One.

I say so based on the assumption that human nature has not changed over the past 2,000 years. If you question that assumption, I can say no more.

Maybe, maybe not. But absent clear evidence of their authors' sources, they cannot be used as evidence for what people were thinking several decades before they were written. The only evidence we have is the documentary evidence, and Paul's documents were written long before the documents that we call the gospels.

No Robots

I won't.

Again, name them.

I disagree.

There certainly is.

It implies, but does not prove said existence.

The text makes the Christians look bad, hardly evidence of Christian tampering.

Then please do so.

We can situate the documents culturally within the context of the oral society from which they sprang.

Doug Shaver

Suit yourself. The lurkers can decide which of us is being more rational.

You ask me to provide evidence that people are not saying something? Uh-uh. You say some are saying it. Let's see the quotations.

Let's see it.

It's not evidence against tampering, either, unless we assume that all Christian forgers were as inept as whoever doctored Josephus. A Christian forger with a lick of horse sense would have known better than to make Tacitus appear to be praising Christians.

You cannot describe the beliefs of that oral society without assuming your conclusion about the authors' intentions.

No Robots

Suits me.


I did provide a quotation about the disciples being of low social standing and including public sinners.


The Suetonius passage has been argued about frequently on this board. You can search for relevant discussions. We don't need to go over it all once again here.


I can't accept your radical hermeneutics of suspicion.


It is the historian's job to understand documents in the context of the cultures in which they originate.