TedM

Sure would be helpful to see that collection. Even better would be a gospel of the divine Christ where everything was spelled out clearly.

I may sound sarcastic but really there is a side of me that thinks the JM theory may have some validity--esp if we know that early Paul followers rejected the now-orthodox view of Jesus.

Kapyong

Gday,

So there we have it -
JMicists are just like creationists, so it's a waste of time for the superior MCalavera to stoop to our level and bother with facts and arguments - he already knows he is right and we are all wrong. Looks like he learned at the feet of McGrath ;-)

Bye then MCalavera.


K.

Toto

I don't wish anything. I'm just looking at what is there - unreliable ancient manuscripts. What do you consider evidence?

I don't. The purported letters of Paul are only evidence of what the second and third century church promulgated as texts.

The Book of Acts is a second century piece of church propaganda. It has no historical value for figuring out Paul or Jesus. But even this selection from Galatians, if it was actually written by Paul or someone like him, does not mention a historical Jesus or anyone who witnessed him on earth. Apostles can be apostles of a god or a spiritual Jesus. Paul persecuted the Church of God but he doesn't indicate what they believed or whether any of them knew Jesus.

So far, you've got nothing.

Of course it fits in well - there was a common editor who imposed a Christian orthodoxy on the entire NT. Robert M. Price considers this passage an interpolation, since Paul otherwise indicates that he got his gospel from no man, and for Paul to call himself the least of the apostles is highly unlike Paul. (His full treatment is here.) Even if not, this is a recitation of a creed, not historical evidence, and we know that these early Christians knew nothing about a historical Jesus. They searched for him in the Hebrew Scriptures, and supplied the necessary details about his life from Isaiah and other passages.

I suspect that we've seen it all before. What's next - Tacitus and Josephus? Thallus? Do you have any archaeological evidence? Official Roman documents from the first century? Anything else that would actually qualify as evidence? I don't think so.

This is not "strong" evidence.

I'm not saying that it is totally irrational to think that there is some reflection of a historical Jesus in what we have. It is entirely possible that there was some dude named Jesus who got himself crucified, and whose friends started a new religion. But the evidence of this is thin, and there are more persuasive ways of interpreted the scanty evidence that we have.

maryhelena

Oh my - well at least you probably gave Stephan Huller his laugh of the day...:hysterical:

Stephan Huller and I have had our time of banging heads - but the man has put his theory on the table and for that he deserves to be given reasoned arguments not derision. Very easy to go knocking down other people's ideas - far more difficult to offer alternative theories oneself.

aa5874

It is also entirely possible that Jesus Christ was a myth and that the Jesus stories were invented in the 2nd century.

The EVIDENCE for this is VERY strong or far better than the possibility that Jesus was a known man who could NOT forgive the sins of mankind.

Kapyong

Gday,

Interested?
There could hardly be an audience that is MORE interested in evidence supporting the historicity of Jesus!

This forum is one with the most interest in that subject, Earl himself even posts here. This thread is largely about that very subject, and there are many others here in which we deal with this fascinating subject.

We would LOVE to hear some 'evidence'.

But it seems like you actually believe that YOU have 'evidence' we have never seen before!

In fact, the alleged 'evidence' has been discussed for years here, but you, a newcomer, and someone who hadn't even read Doherty, seem to believe that YOU have slam-dunk evidence we have never seen.

What a laugh.

We all know what the alleged 'evidence' will be :
Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny, Suetonius, Thallus and Phlegon, Mara bar Serapion, the Talmuds etc. etc.

NONE of which stands up to scrutiny as solid evidence for a historical Jesus.


K.

spin

If you hadn't just arrived two minutes ago and started talking like you thought you knew something we didn't, you might have spent some time to read about what people here actual did know. We have picked through all the literary remains and discussed them to death.

Your baldfaced claims that the evidence for Jesus being historical is strong and stronger than what you and Doherty and others wish just tell us that you are uncritical about cristian preserved sources.

Because he was writing well before any Jesus tradition found in the gospels.

Can you tell me when the book of Acts was actually dated and on what reliable grounds? Of course you cannot. You have to trust the neutrality of mainly christian analysts.

What you read in Paul's comments from Galatians are merely the interpretations of christian scholars analyzing them with post hoc knowledge that stops them from reading what Paul actually says.

Paul is at the beginning of the christian literary tradition and the language that he uses doesn't reflect christian interpretations, but the language use of his time: there was no literary christian use of language in his time to be steeped in, only diaspora Jewish used Greek. When he talks about assemblies (translated as "churches"), people automatically read "christian organizations", but there is no habit established in Paul's time. When he uses "christ" it need only imply "messiah" in Paul's literary context, just as Apollos talked about the "messiah" without knowing anything about Jesus. Reading Paul's language from a christian perspective on usage is anachronistic.

People just love to quote this, but they never quote what follows. They can't see the relevance of the later text which is so irrelevant, given the list of sightings. Why would Paul have to argue if Jesus was resurrected, if there had been so many sightings of the risen christ? Think about it: what is the necessity of the logic of 1 Cor 15:12-19 if vv.4-11 rendered them useless?

Paul's letters are extremely problematical. For example, Romans 16 which has a doxology at the end is found in one early manuscript with the doxology before it, suggesting that the chapter was added after the doxology was written then the doxology was later placed at the end. 2 Corinthians is thought by many christian scholars to be a combination of a number of different Pauline letters, as is Philippians. How they know that they were all Pauline of course is a conundrum that only faith resolves.

Gal 2:7-8 contains two mentions of Peter, though Paul generally mentions a "Cephas" (in 1 Cor and the rest of Gal), and it talks of Peter with a mission to the circumcised, contradicting the following verse which says that it was James, Cephas and John who were to go to the circumcised. Either Peter had the responsibility or James, Cephas and John did. Who does the Peter reference benefit? Obviously the church relying on apostolic succession that looked to Peter as the figure of the unified church.

An interesting textual phenomenon can be observed in 1 Cor where Cephas is mentioned several times there are no variations in favor of Peter, but in Gal where Peter is mentioned there is manuscript drift from Cephas to Peter. The reference to Peter is a later addition which has caused some scribes to brain fart and write "Peter" where the text had "Cephas". We are looking at a late 2nd c. interpolation with Gal 2:7-8, when Peter is established. (And there is no strong reason to think that one name implied the other for in the Epistle of the Apostles, both Peter and Cephas are listed as apostles.)

The evidence for problems even in the Pauline text is abundant (though most text scholars have been trained with the notion that if it's not evinced in the manuscript tradition, don't consider it), but this is the sort of evidence we have to deal with. The gospels are later and worse historically speaking, as we don't know who specifically wrote them, where they were written or even when they were written. Attempting to do historical research with this material is like walking on a minefield: you don't know if any step you take will blow up on you.

This is you just talking plain rubbish. Not even you believe that these sightings represent real events, do you? These people seeing the risen Jesus??? If you believe that these are in fact real, then you are in the wrong place.

Paul bases nothing on history. This is just your misapplication of language. Paul believes things to be real.

Again this misuse of "historical". The adjective in scholarly circles deals with sufficient evidence to make such a call. You can at best be assuming your conclusions.

You honestly believe that Paul is going to belittle himself to his Corinthians? Before you say, "sure, why not?", consider that his letters are his means of keeping control of his flocks, keeping them in checking, maintaining his hold. This is the guy who apparently was taken up to the third heaven, he's that sure of his sales pitch.

There is nothing here. And rehearsing the shallow presentations of classical authors won't improve anything. You need sources that were not under the control of christian scribes: you cannot trust references to Jesus preserved in christian maintained literature. These are not independent sources.

If you had any evidence we haven't already analyzed to death, we'd be happy if you'd post it, but don't be surprised if we laugh at the same old rehearsals of christian apologetics.

archibald

Personally, I would not even go close to saying that there was a strong wall of evidence. Ultimately, the evidence is not good at all, though it might be noted that it is very good relative to many other minor figures from ancient history, minor at the time I mean, but this does not promote it to 'good evidence' and the warnings about Christian hegemony are to be taken very seriously indeed, since we see almost all the evidence through such a filter.

My view is that the HJ explanation is superior to the MJ explanation and its variants (such as the 'composite original' explanation, though there has to be some truth in this, as I see it, because of almost certain elaboration, whether from a mythical figure or an historical one).

MJ is not therefore, in my opinion, a ridiculous proposition, and could be correct. As with several other conspiracy theories. And it must be admitted that this conspiracy theory is not as daft as some others.

One of the problems is that MJ theories are so comparatively lacking, and I think it is no coincidence that (a) they mainly thrive on the internet and (b) quite a few of the proponents have devoted years to the issue and often don't post in other threads, though I fully admit this has nothing to do with the veracity or otherwize of their claims. My opinion is that it's a pity 'atheist/rational' sites are the home of so much debate on an issue which is not a good reflection on the application of rational skepticism.

Incidentally, on the subject of 'repertoire', Spin has just given a nice demonstration of another tool in the myther kit (not saying he himself is a myther, but he leans well away from HJ, while claiming to be neutral, a nice trick).

The tool is called 'obtuse or unnecessary complication of interpretation'

There is no problem with 1 Cor 15:12-19 unless one wants to see it.

Spin is hinting (I believe) at another, somewhat overplayed 'tool', the unevidenced interpolation. Basically, you cite these whenever the text fits your myther theory better with something removed, usually a verse which seems to hint at an historic Jesus (coincidentally) as in the case of the one you quoted.

Interpolations are of course a hot topic, since there have arguably been rather a lot of them. But mythers seem to take this as a license to bowdlerize at will. There is an academic method for identifying them (and several Christian scholars use it liberally, though I myself am a layman and not an expert) which, as far as I can see, mythers seem to think is redundant. Virtually all that is needed is a personal view that there was some kind of cover-up strategy on the part of various writers to counter the assertion that Jesus didn't exist, and one interesting aspect to this is that there is not, as far as I am aware, one shred of credible evidence that there ever was such an assertion back then. But then, mythers are not really worried about lack of evidence, generally speaking.

Did I previously mention the 'ad hom' tool? If I did, apologies for repeating myself. If I didn't, you will likely encounter it quite a bit if you stay in the discussion. I'm not saying I don't sometimes use them myself, but I try to qualify my comments when I do. :]

Btw, in case you hadn't realised already, the topic is impossible to resolve. I only said that to give you a chance to get out early.

stephan huller

For what it's worth the evidence from the early sources would seem to suggest to me at least that a concerted effort was made in the late second century to established 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that a historical Jesus (I prefer to speak in terms of a 'human Jesus') existed. This doesn't mean that there weren't people in the early period who thought Jesus was a human being. This doesn't prove that Jesus wasn't historical. All it says is that the people who had the final word in the debate - the members of the Catholic tradition who associated with the likes of Polycarp (whoever that was) and many others reinforced a particular understanding of the identity of Jesus which defines our New Testament canon.

The only way that we can get beyond or around the 'final editing' of the New Testament canon is by a series of educated guesses, theories, suspicions, reasoned debate etc. But anyone coming around here taking for granted that there wasn't this very strong and very early belief in the supernatural Jesus divine hypostasis, a Jesus who was identified as being one and the same with the 'name of God' (=Shemah/haShem in Samaritan/Jewish tradition) is simply deluding themselves.

I happen to think that the tradition can be broken down further into those who believed that Jesus was baptized by John (= Catholics) vs. those who believe that Jesus ritually prepared a particular chosen disciple (= Marcionites) as the Marcionite gospel (and Secret Mark) did not have a narrative where Jesus received baptism.

dog-on

Correct Stephan.

Here is my take on Paul.

The actual content of his epistles was called into question prior to the time of our earliest MS evidence. Therefore, any argument pertaining to said content must be accompanied by an asterisk and any conclusions that one wishes to derive based on the current content probably needs two...