Solitary Man

Really? What is a myth?

Can you tell the difference between fox shit and raccoon shit?

Do you have evidence that shows that they are indeed mythoi? Have you compared them to other myths? Do you even know what a myth is? Why did Luke style his gospel after Josephus if he was intending to write myth? What's the primary difference between myth and history? When are the lines blurred? How can you tell?

Do you have any evidence for this statement?

Solitary Man

First of all, drop the resurrection bit. I'm not confessional - I'm proud to be an atheist, pursuing rationalism and scholarship over superstition and pseudo-science.

But yes, these Jewish gospels do mention Jesus. They appear to have been confused with Matthew even.

Thanks to Ben Smith for quick access to this.

However, it appears to be very different from the current gospel bearing the title Κατα Μαθθαιον:

Solitary Man

They also drink water and go to sleep...just like you! You apparently don't have much facility in making enlightening analogies, do you?

Meanwhile, some creationists aren't Christian, nor believe that Jesus Christ was created by God. But why am I not surprised to see every religious person who believes their god created the world to be lumped together as Christian?

Toto

Well, what was this all about: If you stated an argument coherently, there would be less opportunity to "butcher" it. But there is no argument. You have something that might be oral tradition. Is is reliable evidence? No. Do you even have evidence of any oral traditions in the Jesus story? I have yet to see that.

So what is your argument?

This sounds so on point.

How does this help your case?

You have done nothing to show that any evidence survived for up for 5 generations.

You talk about junk pseudo-scholarship, but you have so much of it on the historicist side. Why not get up in arms about Ben Witherington wanting to do a DNA match with the Shround of Turin?

And are you trying to say that you can prove an argument by showing that some crazy person uses bad arguments to support the other side?

And you still have not come up with the "much evidence in favor" of your side.

No, I haven't written my grand opus yet. I may never.

aa5874

According to Annals 15.44, it was Christus that was crucified under Pilate, not Jesus or Yeshua. There is no indication from Annals when Christus was born, the age of Christus when he was crucified, the name of his parents, if he had a brother named James or if this Christus was considered to be the son of the Holy Ghost or the God of Moses.
It appears that the Romans crucified thousands of Jews, one may have been called Christus and another Jesus or Yeshua crucified at different times under Pilate.

And if I was to say that Bush was the president of the USA in 1996, which Bush would I be talking about?

Solitary Man

I thought it was pretty obvious. There isn't one piece of evidence that definitively proves the existence of anyone.

Have you ever compared the words from the early patristic authors to the gospels? Do you think that Luke used Matthew? If not, where did the virgin birth come into play? And why do Jewish traditions have yet another alternative theory, but at the same time display no overt knowledge of the gospels?

That the death of Jesus was remembered via several communities and later written down as gospels.

It is!

Communal memory altered the story into something able to be memorized, the testimony which differed from even the person whom the story happened to. One can clearly see the theological (in this case mythic, in the other moral) aspects drawn out and shape the historical core. The divergence in the material of the earliest sources stops where it clearly becomes historical. In this case, that Jesus existed, and was likely to have been executed under Pontius Pilate.

No, other more competent scholars have done so. I guess you really didn't read the articles, did you?

I've done plenty, thank you. Who are you to dictate where my interests lie? Ben Witherington is beyond help. I suppose I have slim hope that you'd still be convinced by scholarship, but alas, you are turning out to be quite Witherington's twin.

No, but you're still putting words in my mouth. Nothing I've said even remotely resembles that.

That's because you hand-waved it away. Search the archives for what I wrote on the trajectory of Christianity from Jesus through James, Paul, John, etc... into the Jewish Christians, proto-Orthodox, etc... I've explained why the trajectory fits the evidence, accounts for everything, much better than Doherty's Jesus Myth or R. G. Price's Literary Jesus could.

Bah. R. G. Price would have been much better off foregoing his ill-conceived idea and instead actually devoting more of his time to scholarship. Drop the plans for a magnum opus. Pick up real scholarship.

Solitary Man

Of course. I'll admit this. This is where we combine sources - we what different authors have to say and make comparisons to see if identifications are involved. We have gospels, both canonical and extra-canonical, Paul, and Josephus who claim that Jesus the Christ was crucified under Pilate, and then Tacitus who claims that Christ was crucified under Pilate. Do you think it's unreasonable to make a connection, given that Tacitus says that this Christ lent his name to the Christians?

Toto

And this shows that you can prove someone existed with no hard evidence? This is just confused.

What would be the point? Some will match, some will not, but nothing indicates that they came from an oral source.

I think that Luke knew Matthew. Surely you are not trying to use a virgin birth as evidence of historicity?!?

The Jewish traditions are late (or much too early).

Interesting theory, but no indication that it is true. Lots of indication that each later gospel writer copied and embellished on Mark. The trial and death of Jesus are dramatic and not especially plausible, so you must be assuming that the basic history was overlaid with literary allusions and myth making - but then how do you know that there is a historical core?

But you still don't know that there was a core. And Pontius Pilate is missing from Paul and any Jewish tradition.

Yes, I read them, and I know something about myth and the transmission of storylines. They give you no support.

I have not given up on the Enlightenment, unlike Witherington.

Then why was your first reason for historicity "a) that so far the mythicist argument . . . is filled with junk pseudo-scholarship?"

You can search the archives, but I don't recall a trajectory that fits the evidence.

[/QUOTE]

Do you consider Bauckham "real scholarship?" NT Wright? Who can you point to?

jonasaberg

This is quite fascinating.
From a very early age I've heard that scholars basically all agree that there has been a historical Jesus. It is only during the past couple of months that I've started questioning it myself.

I'd be very interested in reading about what the evidence is based on.

Solitary Man

No, you're confusing the terms. For one thing, yes, you can prove someone existed with no hard evidence. What hard evidence exists for Caesar's father? Yet he must have existed logically. That's one way to demonstrate existence. Another is to take figures only known in the literary tradition and to identify them with something real. In this case, it's the foundation of a movement. There are other ways, but these two suffice for making my point.

Oh really? And I suppose this comes from your extensive study done on oral sources, right? Or at least a comprehensive study done on where they match, where they don't, no?

No. Toto, I'm getting sick of you twisting every argument I make. Did I say that the virgin birth was evidence of historicity? No. I said that the virgin birth is evidence of an oral tradition that circulated independent of the written gospels, as shown in Matthew, Luke, and other sources. I don't think it's original to the story, but it developed soon afterwards. Are you familiar with trajectories?

How do you know?

Because Paul assumes so, and by implication, James and his group assumes so. The later Jewish Christians (but earlier than the Judaistic Christians) attest to it as well, and they don't come from either Pauline or Markan Christianity, though later they seemed to have taken a liking to Matthew. Jesus explains the data much better than anything you've presented thus far.

Pontius Pilate is irrelevant to the story. He helps set a date. And on the contrary, he's found in Josephus, at least in most reconstructions.

I cannot help your inability to comprehend the articles. You've given no indication that my interpretation of the articles, plain as daylight, is incorrect. More hand-waving as expected.

Au contraire - you've given up on reason and have placed your antipathy towards Christians, the very antithesis of the Enlightenment.

That wasn't a reason for historicity. That was a claim on the status of Jesus Mythicism.

First a couple of things by searching the archive. You appear to have parroted Vorkosigan, even to the point of ignoring Gerhard Stafleu. My guess is that you still never read Alan Dundes.

Finally, you yourself in that thread highlighted that Gutierrez claims that historical reliability does not last past 5 (or 6) generations. Bear in mind that the Jesus story is less than 5 generations old. Quoting Amsbury again, you seem to leave off this vital point:

Emphasis mine. With Alan Dundes and others showing that the early Christianity existed in an oral culture, and with the clear signs of that oral culture coming together on certain points, the only hypothesis which fits it all is the historical Jesus.

You also in that same thread ignored very important contexts on the types of tradition, namely quoting one scholar's mistrust in the tradition that was peculiar to mythicism, then later saying that generally the legendary stuff is not too reliable.

This I agree - this is why Bauckham's book should have been laughed off the stage, in my opinion, or at least his response should have been roundly condemned. However genius he may be about the New Testament literary documents, he's ill-informed on modern anthropological studies.

Finally, as far as this particular search goes, I found this on the trajectory. It's simplified, so you shouldn't have any trouble understanding it.

Yes and no. Bauckham has done a lot more than his latest book. Try picking up copies of the JBL, JSNT, CBQ, JJS, and those are just a few of the Judaeo-Christian themed journals. Neusner is good, as is Chilton. A-J Levine is a favorite. You're going to have to narrow the field if you want me to pick good scholars for your reading.