Toto

Turn about on Ben's thread.

For Jesus historicists.

Imagine, one at a time, that each of the following statements could be shown to be true. How would that affect your belief in historicism?

1. Paul's letters were forged in the second century.

2. Q never existed; Luke read Matthew.

3. Mark wrote the second canonical gospel in the second century.

4. All the gospels were written in the second century.

5. Josephus never mentioned Jesus; Eusebius added both references.

6. Tacitus's lost volume of history contains no mention of Jesus.

7. Mara bar Serapion had someone else in mind when he wrote of the wise king.

8. The author of Hebrews thought of Jesus as having died as a sacrifice in heaven.

9. Papias knew nothing about a historical Jesus; he only reported the philosophical musings of some early followers of The Way. Eusebius distorted his meaning.

10. Marcion's gospel was an original work; the orthodox church inserted matter to create canonical Luke.

11. The author of our third canonical gospel and Acts was a woman who never knew Paul.

12. Acts is a complete fiction, with many scenes based on a romance of the time that has been lost.

13. Paul was not a Pharisee, never studied under Gamaliel.

14. Paul was never in Rome, and died a peaceful death in 90 CE.

15. Paul was never in Damascus.


Anyone else - feel free to add to this.

Clivedurdle

The Abomination of Desolation refers to Hadrian.

Clivedurdle

Incontrovertible evidence of Mithraism being widespread 50 BCE in Roman Triumvirate.

Actually I don't see it as one piece of evidence - like a missing link - but the slow accretion of a mass of fossil evidence that leads to a stronger theory.

(Those dreadful hammers).

youngalexander

Nice one!

And, oh, I almost missed it! Nice one Ben.:devil3:

Ben C Smith

Thanks, Toto.

Let me use my own little system:

0. This proposition, if proven true, would not damage the historical Jesus theory at all; in fact, it may even be predicted by the theory.

1. This proposition, if proven true, would damage the historical Jesus theory lightly; it is not enough on its own to overthrow the theory, but would serve to support stronger arguments for a mythical Jesus. It is something that any historicist should have to explain.

2. This proposition, if proven true, would damage the historical Jesus theory heavily; it is somewhat difficult to imagine Jesus as an historical figure if this is true, but the difficulty is not insuperable.

3. This proposition, if proven true, would damage the historical Jesus theory fatally; it is utterly incompatible with historicism.

2.

0.

1 or 2, depending on how important the details are around the core that can be derived from Paul.

1 or 2.

0.

0.

0.

0 or 3, depending on whether the sacrifice was being contemplated as metaphor. If metaphorical, this is nothing. If not metaphorical, this is fatal, I think.

0.

0 if Mark or Matthew (or both) preceded Marcion and Luke, 1 or 2 if Marcion came first (this being much the same scenario as all gospels originating in century II).

1.

1.

0, though we might lose the epistle to the Philippians (see 3.5).

0.

0.

I will:

Paul thought of Jesus only as a mythical savior god who had never been to earth or who had lived in some distant time. This would be fatal, a 3.

Mark wrote his gospel entirely as an allegory. This would be a 2; but an historical core might still be derived from Paul and others.

In brief, losing works to the second century would be cumulatively damaging; losing only one is no big deal, while losing several begins to hurt. Historicism does not depend on Josephus, Tacitus, or the other outsiders, though it is glad to use them when possible. (Some evidence is simply not a two-way street; having it helps, but lacking it neither helps nor hurts.)

If any author from centuries I or II can be proven (A) to be a Christian and (B) to know only a heavenly Christ, with no inkling of an historical figure, historicism loses a lot.

The exercise I posed began to indicate to me that a lot depends on Paul, and this exercise has reinforced that impression for me; even if we were to lose all the gospels and all Jewish or pagan references, there is still our interpretation of Paul. Some of my answers above may reflect my own reading of Paul as referring to a recent figure (for reasons I have barely touched upon so far on this forum or on my website); if we absolutely have to have at least one other outside reference to date the Jesus we meet in Paul to century I, some of my answers might change.

Ben.

Zeichman

I would agree with Ben at all points except 10), which I would make a 0, including his own additions.

dongiovanni1976x

I would say that if Josephus' mention of James the brother of Jesus (Ant 20.9.1) was proven to be a forgery and #1 (which would include Gal 1:19) and #3 (which would include Mark 6:3) were proven true then that would fatally destroy the HJ position beyond repair IMHO.

Other than that the other examples don't seem to impact the position all that much.

Peter Kirby

Thinking of a historical Jesus theory here similar to Paula Fredriksen's...

...and answering from the angle, not of how it would undermine positive evidence for historicity, but rather act as positive evidence against historicity...

0
0
0
0
1 (significantly problematic). I've argued this connection several times; Josephus is the only non-Christian writer we possess and could have a modest expectation of writing about Jesus.
0
0
2 (this is the Doherty hypothesis that there was a very early christology that excluded the earthly elements about Jesus)
0
0
0
0
-1 (just kidding--but it seems a complete nonsequitur)

-2 (you mean, Paul could have written his letters after GMark?)

0

I'm inclined to think that some good arguments could be mounted against HJ, but these strike me as almost entirely being no go towards a conclusion "therefore, there was no historical Jesus."

The only ones I saw as having any value are the silence of Josephus and the Doherty hypothesis.

One could make a slightly obscure Bayesian argument from the others, perhaps, but then obscure Bayesian arguments can be easily constructed for Jesus too. ("If no text was ever written about Jesus ever..." raises the probability of no-HJ; it is false, and so that instead raises the probability of HJ?)

spamandham

I thought it referred to Caligula. :huh:

spamandham

Ben, why would 2nd century authors reasonably be expected to know anything more about a historical Jesus than you or I?