patcleaver

You bring up an interesting question - what is a primary source.

Primary historical sources of information for the purpose of establishing an historical fact are:
1. artifacts generated by people participating in or otherwise witnessing the historical fact, at the time of the fact, that are evidence of the fact;
2. recordings of information, generated by participants and other witnesses of the fact, made immediately after the fact, that are evidence of the fact.

Only the actual original artifact is a primary source - not the information that the artifact contains. A copy of a primary source is not a primary source, but if the copier can be proved to be reliable, it may be reliable evidence of the primary source. A translation of a primary source is not a primary source. Histories are almost never primary sources of anything.

The primary source has to be created contemporaneous with the fact that the primary source is being used to establish. Documents that are forgeries, fictions, fakes, or otherwise unauthentic or unreliable for some purpose are not primary sources for that purpose. The proponent claiming that an artifact is a primary source for supporting some fact, must establish the authenticity and reliability of the artifact for supporting that fact. If there is reasonable suspicion that an artifact is a forgery, fiction, fake or otherwise unreliable regarding the purpose of its use, then it can not be used as a primary source.

For example, a primary source for the existence of Jesus would be the original diary that was proved to have been kept by one of the 12 apostles, or a letter describing the ministry of Jesus that was proved to have been written by one of the apostles immediately after Jesus' death, or DNA from Jesus' burial wrappings that matched Mary's DNA (if they can find her body assuming the Catholics are wrong about her bodily assumption into heaven), a primary source for the existence of Paul would be the original of one of his Epistles that was proved to be written in the handwriting of Paul.

Of course there is no primary source for the existence of Jesus or Mary or Joseph or any of the 12 apostles or Paul. There are no primary sources for the activities or saying of Jesus, the 12 apostles, or Paul.

There are no primary sources for the existence of Christians before early churches were built during the time of Constantine, because there is reasonable suspicion that all the alleged artifacts of Christianity before the time of Constantine are not reliable. For example, the shrine at Dura Europas, built before 272 CE, could be a pagan shrine, so it can not be used as a primary source. The copy of the gospel of Judas carbon dated to 280 CE (+- 60 years) is a primary source that the gospel of Judas existed around 280 CE, but it is not a primary source that any Christians existed in 280 because its existence does not require that there were any Christians at that time. There is reasonable suspicion that other fragments of the NT that are claimed to be dated before the time of Constantine, based on handwriting analysis, are not reliably dated to before the time of Constantine, so they are not primary sources for their own existence before the time of Constantine.

Didymus

We have no primary source material the supports the contention that Jesus was either man or divine creature. And what secondary "source material" we do have can't stand up to even the most rudimentary evidentiary tests.

Assuming that someone told the gospel writers, or at least one of them ("Mark"), about historical events of some kind, the Jesus story consists of nothing more than hearsay testimony taken down by a transcriber of unknown reliability many years after the events in question. And the value of that already-weak hearsay testimony is further degraded by (a) the fact that much of the story and many incidents and characters bear an uncanny resemblance to characters and incidents that appeared in different contexts in earlier writings, and (b) the possibility, even the likelihood, that much of this material was altered in various ways during the first few Christian centuries.

I think it's fair to say we know only what is believed about Jesus. We have virtually no reliable information about the historical figure, if indeed there was one.

Ddms

patcleaver

The date of P75 is unknown. The accuracy for using handwriting analysis to determine the date of documents such as P75 has not, to my knowledge, been statistically established. Do you have a reference to any statistical analysis establishing its accuracy under these circumstances?

I thought the accuracy of handwriting analysis was only statistically established as a reliable method for determining the dates of writing of the scribes of the courts of Egyptian pharos where all the scribes tended to use the same handwriting style during particular periods.

aa5874

But, the early Christians writers like Irenaeus, Tertullian and Eusebius claim that there were indeed "primary sources" of Jesus, the son of the God of the Jews.

The Gospels called Matthew and John are claimed to have been written by disciples of Jesus, the son of God . These writers must be primary sources.

The Epistles of John, Peter , James and Jude are all claimed to have been written by disciples or some kind of brothers of the son of God of the Jews. Primary sources, again.

The book called Revelation is said to be written by John, a disciple of Jesus, the son of God. Another book written by a primary source.

Now if Christians who should be regarded as truthful, claimed Matthew, Peter and John were disciples of the son of God and wrote about this God, it must be true.

If honest Christians claimed James and Jude were some kind of brothers of the son of God and wrote some epistles, it must be so.

Now, there are other "primary sources" for the disciples and "Paul, the honest Christian writers call them Mark and Luke.

Mark knew Peter very well, according to the Christians, he is a primary source for Peter, and Luke knew "Paul" and is a primary source for Paul.

Now, I am made to understand that there are NO primary sources in the NT for the son of the God of the Jews, the Christians got it all wrong, honestly.

patcleaver

I am not claiming that the fact that a city is mentioned in a fiction is evidence that it does not exist. What I am claiming is that the fact that there is no reliable evidence for something is good evidence that it does not exist.

Absence of evidence is evidence of absence, for example, there are in infinite number of imaginary cities that could conceived to have existed, but only a finite number of real cities that existed, so unless there is some reliable evidence that a city existed, there is almost zero probability that it existed.

The Iliad is fiction (probably recorded oral myth) so it is not evidence that any of its contents are true. I am sure that there are lots of things in the Iliad that are true and lots of things that are false, but the only way that we know whether something in the Iliad is true or false is from other sources.

As an aside,

Generally, in fictional stories, things that would have been known or easily verified by the audience are more likely to be correct, and things that are unlikely to be otherwise known or less easily verified by the audience are more likely to be false.

Didymus

Citations, please. The "primary sources" they referred to were most often "the gospel of Jesus Christ" or "apostolic traditions." But even if they referred to a specific gospel - as I recall, only Eusebius would have made such a reference - the authors of the gospels themselves, whoever they were, did not state that they were companions of Jesus, nor did they claim to have interviewed any eyewitnesses to Jesus' life. In fact, in the preamble to his gospel, "Luke" clearly states that his information was "handed down" to him and his contemporaries.

No, they are not. I don't know who makes such claims, but it is the consensus of Christian scholars that neither writer was an eyewitness to events in the life of Jesus. "Matthew" is a pseudonym; we do not know his real name, or where or when he lived. The same applies to the gospel writers who in the 2nd or 3rd centuries came to be known as Mark, Luke and John.

To establish the primacy of a source, you need something much better than just the term "disciple." Or, for that matter, "apostle." Those terms refer to any follower, not necessarily someone with firsthand knowledge.

The fact that they claimed some sort of spiritual kinship with "the Lord" does not establish them as primary sources. Would you consider the Pope to be a primary source of information about the life of Jesus?

What sort of "primary source" is someone who merely transcribes legends and oral traditions? Not much of one, I daresay. In fact, such an individual is, by definition, a secondary source.

I was specifically talking about the Jesus story, and the term "primary source" refers to historical data. There nothing historical in Revelations, and nothing about the life of Jesus. So how can you consider it to be a primary source regarding the life of Jesus? You seem to completely misunderstand the meaning of the term.

Why must it "be so"? Are honest people incapable of being wrong? Don't honest people believe things that are not true?

Paul attests that he never knew Jesus as a man on earth, and says that he did not receive his "gospel" (by which he means the Christian message) from any man. Luke categorically denies that he is an original source, and tells us that he regards himself as a compiler of information. Mark nowhere states that he was a companion of Jesus. None of the works of these men are primary sources.

Sorry, but "according to the Christians" is not a guarantee of historical accuracy, any more than "according to the Bolsheviks" assures versimilitude regarding the history of the Russian Revolution.

Yes, you are "made to understand" correctly. There are no original sources for Jesus, and all those evangelists, disciples, scribes, epistolatarians and other secondary sources may indeed have gotten it all wrong.

Ddms