badger3k

I am skeptical of Robin Hood as being more than a legend, but Arthur has some circumstantial evidence for the Roman guy (I think Ashe is the scholar - his book is interesting) over some of the others. Of course, the possible history got grossly distorted if this guy was the basis for this legend. It is also possible that the whole legend was made up of bits and pieces of this guy (I keep thinking Artorius, but I thought that was a title not a name) and many others, so much that King Arthur can really be said to be entirely mythical in just about every sense.

Didn't someone post if, for example, Kramer from Seinfeld (or whoever it was) was based on someone the writer knew, does that mean there is a historical Kramer? What about Batman (ok, maybe Commissioner Gordon might be better)? Where do we draw the line?

badger3k

Not having a dog in this hunt, I must have missed it when you gave evidence, so I'll go back and reread, probably tomorrow when I have more time, so my apologies if you did answer what I am going to ask, but I wanted to ask it now anyway. When the discussion breaks down as it did, I tend to skip over it and not read. Sorry.

When we are trying to build a hypothesis, don't we rely on what we have and do not assume more? Paul may have learned a whole lot more than he ever said, but unless he said it, we have no evidence that he did. How can we believe there was more? What is the rational justification for that? If all it is is the simple idea that he surely had to learn something from the people he supposedly persecuted, then how can we rationally go beyond what he himself said? For all we know, he may have learned more but disagreed with it and thought it lies.

Sorry if this comes out the wrong way, but I really can't see the justification for believing in more than what we have. For all I know, the Jews did not think Noah really existed, and that when they talk about him (or Abraham, or others), is it more rational to believe they were talking literally, or metaphorically, especially when you cannot tell from the context? This is a question I've had for a while and am still a bit uncomfortable with. What is the skeptical and rational default? (this is open to everyone, btw, it's just something that bugs me)

Thanks.

aa5874

The existence or non-existence of Robin Hood or Arthur is irrelevant to the existence of Jesus of the NT. One cannot claim that Robin Hood existed therefore Jesus did.

The canonised NT cannot be used for the historical Jesus, it is out of bounds for the historicists. They need to go and look for sources for their Jesus.
Why don't they use Marcion, he claimed Jesus was a Phantom, but was visually human, and existed in Capernaum?

ONLY a God/man entity has been canonised.

Would you argue that the earth was flat and use the writings and findings of Galileo and Copernicus to do so?

No, you would use writings of COSMAS, a flat-fixed-earther.

It is very difficult to argue that Batman was human using comic books as sources of evidence. It maybe that the historical Batman is based on a BAT THAT ACTED HUMAN.

Likewise with Jesus, it is extremely difficult to argue that Jesus was human using gMARK and the Pauline writers where Jesus transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds.

It maybe that historical Jesus was based on an apparition or a vision that SEEMED human-like.

spin

Why less attested than David? There are quite a few examples of various forms of the name attested to in English records in the 13th century.

It sounds reasonable, but you are now in the ralm of tradition rather than records.

Israelite kings are in a different category to Judahite kings. We have some indication of a kingdom for quite some time before its destruction. Judah only appears in history in the latter phases of Assyrian's campaigns, as they press southward after Qarqar. We can assume that there were kings of Israel well before the time of destruction. We can't assume centuries precede Ahaz. Some names may have been wrong in the Israelite sequence, but the kings were there. You can't say the same for Judah. Kuntillet-Ajrud shows Israelite power far south, an unlikely situation if Israel didn't control the territory in between. What was the territory of Jerusalem at the time other than a small satellite of Israel with the larger city of Lachish in the vicinity?

If we are dealing with a real Jesus, then he's not a witness in any sense.

Paul is a witness to the notion of salvation, of a solution to messianic expectation, of a way for the nations to partake in his Jewish take on salvation. The salvation required a sacrifice. Nothing can be redeemed without cost. Debts cannot be overlooked: they must be paid. Jesus must be real otherwise he cannot pay the debt. It's a logical necessity.

And you only arrive at the notion that Paul was "locked in contest with people who were witnesses of a physical Jesus" from apologetic reconstructions of Paul. This does not come from what he tells us in Galatians. FBI operatives didn't need to understand communism when they weeded out people to be persecuted. And if one fell victim to the spell of discent from the American Way, how reflective of real communism would that have been? Paul tells us he was a deeply conservative Jew who was full of zeal for the religion. He's our FBI man. He gave any discenters are hard time. But what do we know about these discenters? He talks about an "assembly of god" and "Judean assemblies that were in christ", but does that mean "proto-christian"? The best we can say was that they were messianists ("in christ"). These are loosely connected with the organization in Jerusalem headed by the pillars. What was their religion? We know that they were strict observers of Jewish praxis, where conflict arose with Paul. They didn't seem to show any interest in Paul's messianic story and Paul certainly had no respect for them, but they had no time for the fact that Paul put his messianic story above praxis.

We don't get to know what the Jerusalem messianists believed, so I can't see you in any position to talk about Paul being "locked in contest with people who were witnesses of a physical Jesus".


spin

spin

Then understand that you give the impression of wasting most people's time when you post.


spin

spin

That's another attempt at accommodating JtB. Yet another is the writer of Acts who talks about Apollos who only knew the baptism of John, yet instructed of the "way of the lord" with enthusiasm and taught well. They took him aside and set him straight about Jesus of course.


spin

dog-on

Who ever would have thought that that particular emote would come in handy, here in BC&H.

Celsus

You mean Arthur or RH? If Arthur, I certainly consider him less attested than David (there may be a couple of contendors for Arthur but there's nothing in the legends to place him and therefore to identify him, whereas the Tel Dan stele agrees with the basic idea that David was a patriarchal figure of some sort), if Robin Hood perhaps it's a tie, I'm not too familiar with that area.
And that's what makes it an interesting question for me! Tradition and history and records are points on a broad spectrum of "historicity", and the early Jewish scribes enjoyed a good bit of interpolation into the records (as did Eusebius) which blurs the line even more. Otherwise I've no real interest in the HJ/MJ debate, only the methodological implications and how it might be viewed from outside NT scholarship by other biblical or historical scholarship.

What amount of Acts is tradition and what is record? For example the supposed communitarianism of the early apostles - tradition or record? An original apostolic centre out of Jerusalem - tradition or record? Paul's origins in Tarsus - tradition or record? Who was the author contesting when he introduces the book pointing to the others who had written their own accounts?
Fair point I guess. I do get the sense that MJers (or Jesus skeptics?) are quicker to dispense with interconnections between the texts than other historians though. But I think that the texts were written precisely in a context of disputes over authority. While they did not write history the way we do, they might not have been able to get away with as much as oral memory would have still remained a strong force among their intelligentsia and central authorities like Polycarp because that was where their authority derived (I'm happy to agree that oral memory among regular Christians could have been malleable and quickly forgotten). And if they borrowed from the school of historiography that produced Josephus, then they could have had an interest in emphasising the stronger and better attested traditions (again I'm simplifying and I know that).

spin

If that means that you have doubts, it's understandable, but if you want to go beyond those doubts, then I think you're entering the realm of belief. It is the suspension of judgment that I think is necessary with Jesus.

Once a figure enters into a tradition the figure gains a creative life of its own. The telling shapes the story. Generations of telling shape it a lot.

The reason I chose figures from a tradition is that you cannot simply dismiss the process in which they came into literary existence. It doesn't matter about the source of a fictional work. It matters for many when it comes to religious tradition. Tradition is a different beast from the artifice of entertainment, even though there may be some superficial similarities regarding sources.


spin

Celsus

Because with kings there's a lot more to go on than just texts. For example, relative peace and even potentially expansion of Judah during the time of Ahaz against a backdrop of the destruction of northern Israel seems to imply that the deal he brokered (recorded by Tiglath-Pileser III) with the Assyrians saved Judah from the fate of Israel. This would come from just archaeological evidence, while using the Biblical list of kings to provide sequence and identify key actors. While Hezekiah and then the young Mannasseh got manipulated by Yahwists (here some reading from the Biblical text is used) and then got promptly hammered. So if you want to look at a figure who preserved Judah's existence, Ahaz is your real man. But because he must have subjected himself giving Assyria tribute, he is vilified by the Biblical authors, whereas Hezekiah's defiance is glorified.

At a more generic level, the kings of Israel/Judah who are attested outside of the Bible include Jehu, Omri, Hezekiah, David (if you buy the Tel Dan inscription). With that many confirmed, we tend to accept the Biblical sequence with some caveats, at least for the latter period of the two kingdoms.
See my comments to spin on this