Freethought & Rationalism Archive

teamonger · 10-23-2008, 11:41 AM

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Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

This problem goes away if you realize that Jesus was not an "absolutely unique individual", but a relatively unimportant Jewish cult leader at the time, one of several Messianic pretenders.

If so then why did we get descriptions like this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. John 1

In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power.
When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has obtained is more excellent than theirs. Hebrews 1

[The Father] has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him.
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1

So gentiles took an unremarkable Jewish prophet and elevated him to divinity, is that what happened?

Jesus was apparently remarkable and charismatic enough to engender quite a following; after the crucifixion, appears imagination took over. It was Paul who started that ball rolling. When people started dying off, they realized the apocalyse was delayed, and that's when connected accounts of Jesus' sayings and doings were compiled, from less connected earlier material.

Notice that in Judea, early followers kept a more modest view of Jesus, emphasized his teachings more. That would be only natural, if some of them knew the guy. But when the Jerusalem church was destroyed, that view was marginalized, and the flights of fancy that you post above were free to take over the theology.
t

spin · 10-23-2008, 11:44 AM

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Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

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Originally Posted by spin

Perhaps magnanimity. Hey, look, man, I've made mistakes too, ya know. (Invent mistake to insert here.)

That really doesn't fit the context of Caesar's Civil Wars.

If you say so.

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Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

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It's wiser to deal with texts rather than conjecture about the writers.

I agree. But ancient texts in general, and theological texts especially, tend to have agendas.

You can eke out agenda in a text without wasting your time with embarrassment. If you can't, it's probably safer to stick with insecurity rather than build in errors.

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Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

If we intend to glean anything from the texts we need to have methods to sort those agendas out. Are they foolproof? Of course not, Firstly because you can never underestimate fools (I've seen embarrassment used to argue that the Exodus was historical), and secondly because, as you note, we can never be sure of motive.

But that doesn't mean that it doesn't help. We do well not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Embarrassment is no substitute for a sink strainer.

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Originally Posted by Rick Sumner

Ultimately it's impossible to remove anachronism or modern biases from any study of ancient history. As long as we're aware we have them, and tread carefully because of that, such criteria have their place.

When I see scholars grappling with their biases in print, I get encouraged. The more it gets done the more it is possible to remove a layer of alienation from the text.

I can't see how embarrassment can ever be tested, so it suffers from the criterion of falsifiability or the lack thereof.

spin

Rick Sumner · 10-23-2008, 11:56 AM

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Originally Posted by spin

If you say so.

I do

And the point isn't that we can take it as bedrock fact based on the embarrassment it causes Caesar, it's that we can take it as more reliable. For the same reason we take Sadie Atkins' testimony above--it's against self-interest.

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You can eke out agenda in a text without wasting your time with embarrassment. If you can't, it's probably safer to stick with insecurity rather than build in errors.

Any method you use to eke out agenda is ultimately going to be subject to biases. Embarrassment isn't unique in this regard.

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When I see scholars grappling with their biases in print, I get encouraged. The more it gets done the more it is possible to remove a layer of alienation from the text.

I agree.

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I can't see how embarrassment can ever be tested, so it suffers from the criterion of falsifiability or the lack thereof.

And I agree here as well. But that's not necessarily a bad thing either--same deal as above; most criteria in establishing authenticity in an ancient text are unfalsifiable. But they're only unfalsifiable based on current evidence. New evidence could surface that falsifies them. So they're not "unfalsifiable" in the Popperian sense that you're applying the term; we can't reject the position on those grounds alone.

As a specific argument--"this is historical because of embarassment"--I agree with your general principle; embarrassment isn't terribly helpful. I certainly wouldn't follow the likes of Segal in declaring everything it offers to be bedrock, anyway. I've long held that holding to specific events or sayings as certainly historical is silly anyway. But as a part of an hypothesis, or a tenet of an overarching model, it has it's place. And ultimately that's all we're doing here, testing one model against another.

Ultimately, when dealing with this sort of evidence, all we're doing is looking for plausibility. Which is part of the fun, I suppose.

Regards,
Rick Sumner

spamandham · 10-23-2008, 11:59 AM

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Originally Posted by teamonger

Yes, it's relevant. If baptism was deemed necessary, wouldn't that naturally follow from the historical event of Jesus and John in the river? I think the onus is on you to show why it was a fabrication instead, in the face of the prima facia evidence.

There is no prima facia evidence supporting the baptism. The author of Mark was not a witness, nor could he reasonably have known Jesus or witnessed this magic baptism event.

The onus is on those who wish to extract the magical and impossible from a story that is inherently ahistorical, and proclaim the rest to be history.

Prima facia, it's not historical. If not for the existence of modern Christianity and legions of apologists masquarading as scholars, I doubt anyone would conclude there was a historical Jesus. The burdon of the mythicist is very light.

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Originally Posted by teamonger

The early datings are accepted by mainstream scholars, not only apologists.

Many (most?) mainstream Biblical scholars come from divinity schools. Their objectivity is highly questionable.

Regardless, late datings are also suggested by respectable scholars, so it's up to us to decide who we think has the stronger argument.

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Originally Posted by teamonger

For you to claim the attestations are not reliable requires some evidence, not just a declaration. At least concerning non-miraculous things which were not improbable.

The attestations include vast quantities of impossible claims, written no less than 40 years after the purported facts. Please tell me you don't consider such nonsense reliable.

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Originally Posted by teamonger

He did mention some historical details about the human Jesus, but mostly steered clear of that, perhaps because this would put a finger on his weakness as a second-hand apostle, unlike his "superlative" rivals. Perhaps Paul had earlier been corrected on some history, and learned to keep his mouth shut about such matters.

...or perhaps the details just hadn't been invented yet. The idea that Paul had no interest in any details of the man he worshipped is absurd. An argument like that would not be accepted in any historical analysis outside NT studies.

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Originally Posted by teamonger

The baptism was probably so well known to original followers that it couldn't be left out.

Yet, Paul left it out and was even earlier than Mark (per traditional dating). Why would Mark be compelled to mention it if Paul was not? The baptism was added for two reasons; the first is theological. Christians at the time of Mark were engaged in baptism, so Mark needed to have Jesus baptized as well to legitimize the practice.

The second is propaganda. If we're going to have Jesus baptized, who better than John the Baptist to do it?

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Originally Posted by teamonger

I think Mark was written from Rome, around the time of or shortly before the war.

Unless you think Mark was a psychic, it had to have been written after the fall of the temple. The idea it was written in Rome is fine. Hmmm. Maybe it was written by Romans?

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Originally Posted by teamonger

In any case, I find Mark the imperfect reporter (who also didn't know Palestinian geography), much more believable than Mark the ingenious fabricator.

Was he delusional then, or do you think he actually witnessed all the magical crap? If you agree he made that shit up, then upon what basis do you conclude he was not a fabricator?

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Originally Posted by teamonger

Not at all, if Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher. I think people mistook the war for the apocalypse.

Jesus made specific predictions that came true; the complete desolation of the temple for example. The simplest explanation for that is that it was written after the events. In light of this, and given that there isn't any reason to presume an early date for Mark, why presume it?

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Originally Posted by teamonger

I don't think the birth narrative was necessarily part of the original Matthew;

I have no idea whether it was or wasn't, but Matthew is irrelevant to this discussion anyway from my perspective.

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Originally Posted by teamonger

Paul shows no knowledge whatsoever of the war, having visited the "pillars" in Jerusalem repeatedly. He is clearly pre-70, and probably died in Nero's mess.

Paul also shows no knowledge of the existence of the temple or any practices related to it whatsoever. Why is that not equally compelling?

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Originally Posted by teamonger

I think the destruction of the Temple got Jesus' earlier apocalyticism more noticed. His predicting the destruction may have been an interpolation, or even just a lucky hit. But certainly Mark isn't much later than 70CE, since he thinks the temple destruction is just the beginning of the end that was about to occur.

Modern Christians are still expecting the end any day. Such an expectation does not limit the date for Mark.

teamonger · 10-23-2008, 12:22 PM

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Originally Posted by aa5874

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Originally Posted by teamonger

All I can say is, Sanders is a respected mainstream scholar, and certainly no apologist. For example, he writes that the gospel of John has little value in historical Jesus study. His view is that Jesus was quite mistaken in predicting an imminent end of the world scenario. Just because his background is from a religious context, doesn't mean you understand what he really believes, or that he is necessarily biased.

Explain how a Christian, like E.P. Sanders, who believes Jesus existed is not an apologist for Christianity.

I've read his work, and have not detected such apologist bias. He believes Jesus existed based on evidence that he carefully lays out. I've also noticed Christians who claim he is an apostate for not accepting every word in the Bible. Have you even read him? Your attitude is like that of the fundie who refuses to consider atheist views because atheists are "biased" against believing.

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You need to provide evidence or credible information that can place your Jesus in the 1st century during the reign of Tiberius, failure to do so will make others conclude that there was no such person as Jesus of Nazareth.

Claiming there was no such person means you are ignoring the prima facie evidence of the New Testament and extra-canonical writings. The onus is on you to provide evidence that all this was fabricated on a complete phantom. Do you have such evidence?

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The authors of the Gospels all claimJesus of Nazareth was well known, moved with thousands of people and regarded as the prophets like Elijah, Isaiah and others, even like John the Baptist.

As the gospels were about glorifying the guy, we don't have to believe them where they may be exaggerating Jesus' importance at the time. But the simple matter of his existence is not improbable in the least.

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Yet no Jewish writer wrote a single word about this new phenomena called Jesus, the son of the God of the Jews, the Messish, the Christ, the Lord and Saviour, King of the Jews, the Redeemer, John the Baptist, Elijah and other prophets who died for the sins of the Jews.

Are you claiming none of the New Testament writers were Jewish? We don't have to believe their hyperbola and theological exaggerations, but when they report down to earth things like baptism in a river, walking around talking with a charismatic guy, the guy making a scene in a temple and ultimately being executed, there is nothing improbable about any of that.

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Philo and Josephus covered virtually the entire 1st century, yet show no influence or impact of the phenomena called Jesus of Nazareth.

Philo was an apologist for the Jews before the Romans. Even if he knew something about Jesus, it would've done him no good to bring up what to him was an embarrassment, especially someone who in any way was claimed to be a king.

Appears Josephus did indeed mention Jesus in a negative light which was later adulterated... and also knew of Jesus as the brother of James.

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How can a Jew called Jesus of Nazareth walk around in broad daylight and ask thousands of Jews to pay taxes to the Romans and not be noticed by any other Jew?

Again, thousands is likely exaggeration. And again, even if Jesus was noticed by Jews, they might not have wanted to discuss such an embarrassing figure.

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How could a Jew walk around with thousands of followers and refer to the Pharisees and Scribes as vipers, and was never arrrested, beaten, or stoned and was allowed to preach in the synagogues?

Er... maybe he was arrested, beaten, and stoned. I remember reading about that somewhere ;-) His preaching in synagogues was probably before he showed up in Jerusalem to spew his venom.

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A letter writer called Paul claimed he was beaten, stoned, imprisonned and run out of synagogues, for preaching the gospel, however Jesus of Nazareth was beating people in the Temple while he was teaching.

Until, you can show that there is information, external of the Jesus stories in the NT and Church writers, to show the Jesus did actually exist, I must conclude that Jesus of the NT was just a legedary fable and did not exist al all, i.e. a mythical apocalyptic preacher.

No, the NT is entirely sufficient to establish his existence. Until you can show evidence that multiple independent sources (Mark, Q, Paul, non-canonical Hebrew gospels) completely fabricated the various accounts, we must accept the prima facie evidence. Do you have evidence for this conspiracy theory? There is simply nothing improbable about the mere existence of a Galilian cult leader named Jesus.

In my opinion, atheists need to get off this fringe fad. To the average believer it just looks nutty, and seems to prove what their preachers tell them: that atheists just want Jesus to go away. Looking nutty is a terrible strategy in a debate. I happen to think we should let religionists be the nutty ones.
t

bacht · 10-23-2008, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Jesus was apparently remarkable and charismatic enough to engender quite a following; after the crucifixion, appears imagination took over. It was Paul who started that ball rolling. When people started dying off, they realized the apocalyse was delayed, and that's when connected accounts of Jesus' sayings and doings were compiled, from less connected earlier material.

Notice that in Judea, early followers kept a more modest view of Jesus, emphasized his teachings more. That would be only natural, if some of them knew the guy. But when the Jerusalem church was destroyed, that view was marginalized, and the flights of fancy that you post above were free to take over the theology.
t

It's always the same paradox: some Jewish prophet was charismatic enough to start a movement that lasted two millenia and spanned the globe, yet he was not charismatic enough to attract the interest of contemporaries.

I agree that once the Jewish state was gone the gloves were off. But a century earlier is a different situation. We know that the historicity of Muhammed is unsettled, why should the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God be more secure?

teamonger · 10-23-2008, 12:30 PM

[QUOTE=spamandham;5619957]

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

Paul is on a different planet form the Gospels altogether.

And maybe that's why whenever Paul encountered the Jewish-Christians in Jerusalem, all they could do was argue.
t

teamonger · 10-23-2008, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Yes, it's relevant. If baptism was deemed necessary, wouldn't that naturally follow from the historical event of Jesus and John in the river? I think the onus is on you to show why it was a fabrication instead, in the face of the prima facia evidence.

There is no prima facia evidence supporting the baptism. The author of Mark was not a witness, nor could he reasonably have known Jesus or witnessed this magic baptism event.

The onus is on those who wish to extract the magical and impossible from a story that is inherently ahistorical, and proclaim the rest to be history.

Prima facia, it's not historical. If not for the existence of modern Christianity and legions of apologists masquarading as scholars, I doubt anyone would conclude there was a historical Jesus. The burdon of the mythicist is very light.

Many (most?) mainstream Biblical scholars come from divinity schools. Their objectivity is highly questionable.

Regardless, late datings are also suggested by respectable scholars, so it's up to us to decide who we think has the stronger argument.

The attestations include vast quantities of impossible claims, written no less than 40 years after the purported facts. Please tell me you don't consider such nonsense reliable.

...or perhaps the details just hadn't been invented yet. The idea that Paul had no interest in any details of the man he worshipped is absurd. An argument like that would not be accepted in any historical analysis outside NT studies.

Yet, Paul left it out and was even earlier than Mark (per traditional dating). Why would Mark be compelled to mention it if Paul was not? The baptism was added for two reasons; the first is theological. Christians at the time of Mark were engaged in baptism, so Mark needed to have Jesus baptized as well to legitimize the practice.

The second is propaganda. If we're going to have Jesus baptized, who better than John the Baptist to do it?

Unless you think Mark was a psychic, it had to have been written after the fall of the temple. The idea it was written in Rome is fine. Hmmm. Maybe it was written by Romans?

Was he delusional then, or do you think he actually witnessed all the magical crap? If you agree he made that shit up, then upon what basis do you conclude he was not a fabricator?

Jesus made specific predictions that came true; the complete desolation of the temple for example. The simplest explanation for that is that it was written after the events. In light of this, and given that there isn't any reason to presume an early date for Mark, why presume it?

I have no idea whether it was or wasn't, but Matthew is irrelevant to this discussion anyway from my perspective.

Paul also shows no knowledge of the existence of the temple or any practices related to it whatsoever. Why is that not equally compelling?

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

I think the destruction of the Temple got Jesus' earlier apocalyticism more noticed. His predicting the destruction may have been an interpolation, or even just a lucky hit. But certainly Mark isn't much later than 70CE, since he thinks the temple destruction is just the beginning of the end that was about to occur.

Modern Christians are still expecting the end any day. Such an expectation does not limit the date for Mark.

Appears we are talking past each other. Some of the answers to your statements above are in things you snipped.

I will only comment that I agree the stronger argument should prevail. It's become pretty clear to me that atheists who want Jesus to just disappear can be just as biased as apologists.
t

teamonger · 10-23-2008, 12:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bacht

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Jesus was apparently remarkable and charismatic enough to engender quite a following; after the crucifixion, appears imagination took over. It was Paul who started that ball rolling. When people started dying off, they realized the apocalyse was delayed, and that's when connected accounts of Jesus' sayings and doings were compiled, from less connected earlier material.

Notice that in Judea, early followers kept a more modest view of Jesus, emphasized his teachings more. That would be only natural, if some of them knew the guy. But when the Jerusalem church was destroyed, that view was marginalized, and the flights of fancy that you post above were free to take over the theology.
t

It's always the same paradox: some Jewish prophet was charismatic enough to start a movement that lasted two millenia and spanned the globe, yet he was not charismatic enough to attract the interest of contemporaries.

I agree that once the Jewish state was gone the gloves were off. But a century earlier is a different situation. We know that the historicity of Muhammed is unsettled, why should the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God be more secure?

I think you have to separate the "incarnation" from the cult leader. There is no paradox, just a transformation from a Jewish movement to a Gentile religion.

Jesus did attract the interest of Jewish contemporaries, enough to get himself executed. After that, there's no need for Jewish writers to mention an embarrassing guy who was claimed to be a king. Entirely counter to their apologetic purposes. I suspect Josephus may have known far more than he let on, but restrained himself so as not to piss off his patrons.

t

gurugeorge · 10-23-2008, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

There is simply nothing improbable about the mere existence of a Galilian cult leader named Jesus.

No, but isn't there's something a mite improbable about him being deified immediately after his death and that deification not being mentioned by anyone at the time?

If the TF contains a nugget of apocalyptic revolutionary, that only goes to reinforce the point.

At any rate, the "Jesus" we know and for whom there has been thought to be historical evidence is a myth - if the myth is based on an apocalyptic revolutionary, it's even more of a myth than it would have been if it had been based on a sage of some sort (the more usual view).

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