mountainman

Hi Doug,

Well I am just a wildcard in the trenches and cant see the flagpole, but I am happy to salute your commitment to somehow coordinate a collaborative response from this forum to Ehrman's understanding of ancient history. If all I am useful for is pumping rounds into Eusebius and Constantine (they dont seem to be falling over at the moment), call me if I am required - despite our differences there may be common ground.

Nice one avi.

Best wishes


Pete

Doug Shaver

Thank you, Pete. If this goes anywhere, no doubt there'll be plenty of work to go around.

aa5874

Ehrman admits that the Gospels and the sources for the Gospels are UNRELIABLE.

Ehrman's historical Jesus of Nazareth is "GIGO" (garbage in garbage out).

mountainman

To be more specific aa5874, imho, Ehrman's historical Jesus of Nazareth is Eusebian. Because Eusebius (who had his preservers and continuators) is the historical Editor-in-Chief of the Gospels and sources for the Gospels, we are dealing with Eusebian edited GIGO.

aa5874

Ehrman's historical Jesus of Nazareth is not really Eusebian. Ehrman REJECTED the Eusebian Jesus, God Incarnate, the Child of the Holy Ghost and Creator that walked on water, transfigured and was resurrected on the THIRD day.

Ehrman's historical Jesus is GIGO (garbage in garbage out).

At least Eusebius claimed that his sources were reliable but Ehrman ADMITS publicly that his source for the historical Jesus can be retreived from "historical garbage" (unreliable discredited sources) called Gospels.

ApostateAbe

I recently finished the lecture series. I think it is especially educational and compelling.

I think avi's suggestion is right-headed, and I don't want it to fall by the wayside. Jesus-Minimalists don't even need a YouTube video series. Just put it in writing--how do you explain the ancient writings of early Christian myths? And how does your reasoning compete against Bart Ehrman's explanation?

Bart Ehrman is a persuasive presenter, owing largely to his engaging style, no doubt about it. But, he is no charismatic preacher man. His style would mean relatively little if he didn't have the incredible strength of his case.

In lecture #9, Ehrman presents the criteria that he claims most scholars adhere to in some form or another--independant attestation, dissimilarity, and contextual credibility. The criteria seem to be common sense, but he makes the point that: if you don't like the criteria, then you just need to come up with your own. He then uses the remaining lectures to justify his case fully using those three criteria. The three criteria converge with each other. The negative application of one criterion tends to match the negative application of the other two, and likewise for the positive applications. If Christian authors made a claim that is not multiply attested, then it tends to be likewise not dissimilar to their interests and not contextually credible, failing all three criteria. If Christian authors made a claim that is dissimilar to their interests, then it tends to be multiply attested and contextually credible. And so on.

That is how he arrives at his preferred character of the historical Jesus, a rural Jewish itinerant preacher who thought the world as Jesus knew it would very soon come to a disastrous end before a new kingdom of God would be established on Earth. This theory seems to be most expected from the data by far, given both the ancient Christian documents and the ancient historical context.

His claims are very well-substantiated by his criteria--good criteria--and he doesn't presuppose anything that isn't already seemingly obvious. Unlike Robert M. Price and Acharya S, Ehrman doesn't need to speculate a bunch of strange textual edits that are not already obvious. Seemingly unlike JD Crossan, NT Wright and Earl Doherty, Ehrman doesn't need any unusual understandings of the texts that are not already grossly visible.

This is the stuff of rationalism. Skepticism. Reason. Freethought. All of those buzz words. Ehrman's typical opponents are Christians--mainly the conservatives. His model of the historical Jesus is fundamentally and highly offensive to the root of orthodox Christian tradition. But, Ehrman saves his key swipes for the theories of liberal Christians like JD Crossan. Ehrman claims that the Jesus Seminar's model of Jesus is built to make Jesus relevant to modern liberal concerns.

And Ehrman seems damned right, but where does this leave him? He would be finding his main base of support among the anti-religious people. The main force of this theory is not the anti-religious appeal, however, but the ancient evidence--1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Mark 8:38-9:1, Mark 13:28-30, John 21:20-23, 2 Peter 3:3-8, and many more preachings of an evolving doomsday cult seemingly centered on a reputedly human doomsday cult leader named Jesus. Much like any other physical threat to an authoritarian state, he was executed after a short trial.

Well, as it turns out, the anti-religious people who argue the subject the most tend to be at odds with this theory of mainstream critical scholarship. They advocate historical models that are even more personally appealing (Jesus as a mere myth), and they seem to needlessly follow the same pattern as the conservative Christians, the liberal Christians, and all other ideologues, who laugh at the probable models as ridiculously improbable, and they design their eccentric history to make their political/social points. I think that is why Jesus-minimalists will very soon find themselves the targets and victims of Bart Ehrman's very potent written rhetoric.

Fight back and prove me wrong. If you are a Jesus-minimalist, then follow avi's advice, make your case, and make it well. Don't just complain. Don't just criticize your opposition. Don't just raise doubts. Don't assume that you have the winning hand as long as you can tear down your opposition a hundred different ways. Stop taking so many pages from the manuals of all the other proponents of improbable fringe theories. Instead, explain the ancient data more powerfully than the mainstream case.

That, or you can throw up your hands and declare almost all of it to be much too uncertain, but I wouldn't seriously suggest that. A lot of people out there--people like us--think that we really can draw reasonable inferences from the historical data, and for good reason: we have more than enough relevant data contained in the Christian legends of the early Christian texts, legends that are integral with their social contexts. As with all such data, some explanations are far more probable than others, and one model in particular clearly owns the day.

Solo

He is a good presenter and even better packager of ideas. He is just not very convincing to people who are little more grounded in life and have greater exposure to historical ideas overall, than his undergraduate innocents to whom this series adresses.

I was not at ll impressed with Ehrman's presentation. The three criteria are not as much problem theoretically, as in their application.

Bart simply assumes independence between Mark, Q, L, M, Thomas and John. But he presents no compelling case for it. Majority of scholars accept the Q theory not because it is a historical fact but because it coincides theologically with their view. The L and M designations logically depend on the Q theory, and the general dislike of the idea some stories and pronouncements of Jesus were simply invented by Mark (as illustration or ironic 'fulfilment' of Paul's theology) and Matthew (who argued with Mark). John's independence is still QED. And Thomas, though parts of it clearly come early, is generally believed by Ehrman (without much of a proof) to be a later development. But that does not prevent him from mentioning Thomas as one of the primary sources. He also accepts - no surprise there - Josephus' witness. So, e.g. he has convinced himself that the 'James' of Paul's letters, Mark's gospel, and Josephus independently testify of James' kinship to a historical Jesus. To me it appears that Ehrman's method here is not as much 'independent attestation' but a borrowed flying carpet of faith masquerading as historical method.

The problem with Ehrman's view, is that he really, despite his masterful handling of the texts on the micro level as a liberal, deep down, remains a captive of his fundamentalist, conservative, upbringing, in assessing the historical core, i.e. the macro level. He may even describe himself as an agnostic but he does not grasp the range of historical possibilities which exist with the texts and what we know about their origins. He defaults to the orthodox position, and defends it, even though his own work undermines it.

We have discussed recently the dissimilarity principle. Ehrman thinks that dissimilarity vouches e.g. for the historicity of the baptism. Superficially, it indeed makes little sense for the Christians invent a story that would make Jesus 'inferior' to the Baptizer by agreeing to be 'cleansed' by him. But this idea presupposes that Jesus was immediately after his death thought of as Saviour in Jerusalem where the orphaned movements of Jesus and John would have mingled and vied for converts. It is quite possible, or even probable, that the story of John baptizing Jesus originated with the John's followers as an invention to embarrass their proselytizing rivals. It would have been picked up by Mark who was a staunch Paulinist, principally because in the Pauline traditions, what Jesus said and did on earth was not important at all - he was sent to die for sin and the teachings were not of the Nazarene Jesus but emanation of the spirit of the risen Lord revealed to Paul and to the adherents of Paul's gospel. Mark would have included the baptism knowing full well that it did not speak of the HJ prophetic supremacy over John. But what happened prior to the descent of the dove at Jordan did not matter a whit to Mark. Further, in the Paul's "Sophia Christi" (1 Cr 1:18-31), the paradoxical abasement of Christ in flesh could not be understood by the standards of worldly wisdom - but by the gnosis of the cross. By the principle of "the last shall be first", there is no dissimiraity in John's baptizing Jesus. The only thing required of John is to recognize the supriority of the Spirit.

It is only with Matthew who stood up to what he saw as Pauline usurpation of Jesus, that the baptism becomes a theological problem. He smartly takes over most of Mark's gospel - rather creating one from scratch from the Nazarene traditions - and then explodes it from within. He reworks the mysteriously nebulous Twelve, as the twelve disciples and gives them exclusive access as historical (vs Mark's spiritual) witnesses, and claiming (falsely) they were the first ones who received and preached the resurrection. What appears to us as minor differences was in fact huge upsetting of the gospel's design. In

Matthew's presentation of Jesus, as a bona fide extra-large Jewish prophet with Davidic Messianic credentials, John's superiority to Jesus proclaimed by the act of baptism has to be dealt with. So, Matthew makes a determined effort to make John to abase himself before Jesus. Where Mark does not recognize Jesus as the prophesized "greater one", Matthew's John is acutely aware who came to him requesting the cleansing and requests baptism from Jesus. Matthew, in what was a stroke of genious appeals to 'righteousness' and submits to the rite.

Matthew's ingenuity, IMHO, was in that, having the option of discarding the encounter (as Luke did), he accepted it from Mark nearly intact and filled it with the inverted theological justification. This of course would have had a great effect when arguing with the Markians and proto-Mandeans by saying to them: 'you are right in saying that Jesus came to John but you don't have the whole story'. Certainly, it was a better strategy than rewriting Mark's story of the appearance of the spirit from scratch and denying that the two men ever met.

But the fact that Matthew theologically upheld Mark, is no guarantee whatsoever that the encounter was historical. Luke records no encounter, and explicitly avoids the mention of John administering Jesus' baptism. Reading this together with the Lukan expanded nativity story which embraces John's, it seems probable that the rivalry between John's and Jesus' followers was stronger in Luke's time (and/or neck of the woods) and had to be handled more delicately than by Matthew.

It could have very well been that the story of Jesus' baptism was invented by the Baptist followers as a proselytizing ploy and migrated to Mark, who thought it an excellent opportunity to fulfill the prophecy of John in Jesus whom the Baptizer did not recognize as the "greater one" when he meekly came to be baptized by the holy man.

Ehrman introduces the "contextual credibility" issue as a tool that weeds out anachronisms. It is ironic that in that in his comments he muses on the probability of this or that being said by a first century Jewish rabbi. It is generally agreed that there were no "rabbis" in first century Palestine. At best, the term was used as a non-titular appelation. The example given of John gospel's account of the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus is ok. Ehrman thinks, and he is probably right, that the conversation is based on a pun of Jesus using the Greek word anōthen which can mean both, 'anew/again' or 'from above/from God'. Nicodemus thinks of the second physical birth; Jesus speaks of a spiritual re-birth. Ehrman says that this punning would not be available in Aramaic, the language in which the conversation would have taken place if it was an historical transcript.

The interesting thing about this example is that it is not much an example of contextual credibility as say a presence of synagogue in Nazareth in 30CE. The ambivalence of John's proposition may have been expressed slightly differently in Aramaic, as the 'babe', or 'new-born', or 'little child' seems to have been a common gnostic bon mot well established before John. (It is alluded to by Paul in 1 Cr 3:1, 1 Cr 14:20, Matt 11:25/Lk 10:21, GThom 4). So what we might be looking at is an 'artful rendering' with inauthentic detail, rather than 'a credibility issue'. In a similar case, King James' 'through the glass darkly' is a poetic mismatch of the original 'through a metal mirror not clearly'.

Best,
Jiri

aa5874

Ehrman PRESUPPOSES the "historical Jesus" of Nazareth did exist.

Doug Shaver

I explain them approximately the same way Doherty explains them, though I don't agree with him in all the details.

I believe that my reasoning, compared with Ehrman's, rests either on fewer presuppositions or else on more defensible ones. (Presuppositions can be hard to count because they're often hard to see, but once you spot one you can inquire about its justification.)

mountainman

This presupposition that the "Historical Jesus" postulate is true and correct lives in the remnant psychological baggage of centuries of oppressive church authority, for which we see no evidence before Nicaea, and legions and lashings of it ever after. The objective search for the historical jesus has failed - perhaps because the postulate of the historical jesus is probably not the correct one, despite what Erhman might presuppose.