Chris Weimer

Why isn't the historical tradition evidence? Every other culture uses tradition, and much of it is accepted, although with reservation and many added qualifiers. When the tradition overlaps with facts, we generally assume there is some historical reliability in that tradition. That's done in anthropological circles worldwide.

The Jesus Mythicist needs to stop thinking in the 19th century, and move up to modern times.

Chris Weimer

So, fourth century manuscripts aren't good evidence? I would think then that 14th century manuscripts must be nothing at all. Does that mean that Catullus never existed?

Spanky

Post #31 Chris?

spamandham

Because we have no idea whether or not it's based on anything of substance. If we did, we would use that direct evidence rather than appealing to tradition.

General assumptions are generally wrong.

spamandham

No, they are not! What a rediculous concept to think that writers 300+ years after the events in question, in the pre-scientific age of superstition and incredulity, would have anything of substance to offer regarding the historicity of a figure from the 1st century. If this is your standard of inquiry, why bother at all?

I don't know, and could care less what the implications are of demanding reasonable standards.

If we have to admit we know less than we claim to know about the past, I'm ok with that.

Your point smells like an argument from consequences, rather than a reasoned objection.

3DJay

Do you speak English?

"1. You, obviously, don't know what you're talking about, because Paul admits to not even meeting a living Jesus, and witness anything historical about him, which he could give testimony about." ~ Me

Now where, in that sentence, do you see me argue that not meeting him makes them not contemporaries? Where? Right. Nowhere.

I argued he didn't witness a historical Jesus to give testimony about. Here's some words defined, for you.

Testimony:
1. evidence given in court: evidence that a witness gives to a court of law. It may take the form of a written or oral statement detailing what the witness has seen or knows about a case.
2. proof: something that supports a fact or a claim

Witness:
1. transitive verb see something happen: to see something happen, especially a crime or an accident
3. transitive verb experience important events: to experience important events or changes, or be the time in which they occur

bear witness (to something) to prove or be evidence that something is true or that something happened

You can't be a witness to events you aren't there for.
He's not a freakin "witness". His "testimony" is purely hearsay, with regards to a historical Jesus.
Are you agreeing that my original statement is true, then?
WTF?! I didn't imply anything, to begin with. I made a simple statement, of fact...""There is no contemporary Christian testimony to exlude."

You are the one who implied Paul could give contemporary testimony. Do you have proof he even witnessed a historical Jesus, for which he could give testimony about? Do you have proof of his contemporary writings, somwhere about 30 CE? In the first century?


Peace

Chris Weimer

It's quite a bit of working.

As always, I'm sure.

You are very intriguing? Haha, not really.

No, I didn't say that. I never said the evidence was irrefutable. But the what we do have, and I'll get to my build up in a few minutes, is something that has long survived - we have testimony that people knew people who knew Jesus. Now, the problem we have is evaluating the claims - can they be reconciled with what we know?

You see, "skepticism" generally leaves the evaluator empty - let's get rid of anything that cannot be determined by hard science. The problem is that most of what we know about antiquity is not determined by hard science. Many figures from Josephus' Antiquities have no other evidence going for them except that Josephus mentions them. Does that mean they did not exist?

Of course not. We do not exclude Josephus' accounts for whatever reasons. Now, what sort of double standard are we employing when we negate the Christian accounts as well? This is special pleading. We must either exclude Josephus' testimony because we cannot find archaeological proof, or we must consider the Christian testimony. Anything else is unfair.

Now, this isn't saying that everything in the Christian testimony is correct - it's one of those biases of mine to make no assumptions that a document must be inherently correct. Nor do I automatically assume that they are not correct. Nor do I assume that just because they're Christian they must not be correct unless they corroborated by other sources. We'd lost much of history if every statement from antiquity had to be so rigorously documented, simply by the fact that much of antiquity is not so documented.

So in comes the historian. We have these fragments, and we have to consider every piece of evidence. And yes, Christian tradition is "evidence". Whether it is reliable evidence shall remain to be seen. But the historian comes in and tries to fit the fragments together, starting with the strongest evidence first, and then fitting in the weaker evidence into that.

This is what anthropologists do with oral tradition - they look to see if anything might have an historical kernal by examining what fits and what doesn't fit.

This is important - when something doesn't fit, it isn't automatically thrown out. It's explained. It's explained how, where, and why it came about. Even my most ardent opponents, spin being the prime example, will not doubt that - he does the same thing. Where did Jesus come from? If I recall correctly, his theory is something along the lines of Paul thought he missed the coming of the Messiah. Does it work with what we know psychologically, historically, and anthropologically? I don't think so.

But what about the status quo? Does it fit with what happened? Unfortunately, we have so little about this fascinating little cult group and it's purported leader that it's hard to figure out exactly what the status quo is.

Obviously (at least to me) it's not as the gospels tell it - my biases exclude extraordinary events without extraordinary evidence - and that is a constant, i.e. I keep that rule with every writer I come across.

So we can rule out the divine, at least until there's enough evidence for it. Until then, we still have to explain the divine.

Some here have taken the easy route - it's all one grand conspiracy. Someone just made it all up - either Eusebius, Constantine, or even Mark himself. The whole thing - made up. Such a thing was a rarity in those days, and I don't recall anything of the sort in this context. It'd be very unique - which isn't impossible, but is it probable?

Again, the rarer event X happens, the less likely that an event is event X. So it becomes improbable that someone made it all up.

There are, of course, other options to be explored.

Back to the status quo - we have at present several group vying for the identity of Jesus. The group I most sympathize with is the Context Group - i.e. Jesus was an apocalyptic preaching the end-times. His apocalyptic message became distorted, and his influence on a small cult changed after his martyrdom by the Romans. After the destruction of Jerusalem, his eschatological message of a New Kingdom of God (i.e., new Jerusalem) became less and less of a reality, and the shift from an Judaean audience to a Gentile audience brought in different ideas.

Does that fit the evidence? Does that fit what we know of the times?

When I was very little, I couldn't understand some things. I couldn't understand why two objects of different weights fell at the same rate. I was skeptical.

Now, instead of skepticism, I practice criticism - the evaluation of evidence rather than going with what I previously learned or felt to be true. I don't try to rationalize my past "feelings" with what I'm intaking - instead, I thoroughly evaluate it, and figure out what it means, where it belongs. Then I try to fit it in the bigger picture.

What is the writer doing? What are you doing? How is this affecting what we know? Are the methods sound? Have they been tested out on other figures? Have they done comparisons with modern examples? Is it in accord with sound anthropological methodology?

These questions aren't easy to answer, and if I appear to be so sure that Jesus 100% existed, I'm not. But that's not because of Jesus, it's because our own history is so fragmentary, that we won't ever know what was for 100%, but only by probability. What is probable?

You know what they say - how can you without using circular logic prove that you exist? Save proofs for the mathematicians, go with what's probable.

Chris Weimer

Can someone please explain to spamandham that most of our manuscripts were written down hundreds if not thousands of years after their events!

Wow. You sound like a fundy.

"Know" or "are 100% absolutely positive"? If the latter, than you're arguing a strawman.

Yes, I'd rather not wipe out history because of your hyper-skepticism.

Can you prove you exist?

Chris Weimer

Strawman - when did anyone ever talk about "proofs" in historical inquiry? No one is trying to "prove" anything. To do so is such a ridiculous abuse of not only the historical method, but of all scientific thought. I repeat my question

Can you prove you exist?

And please, no circular logic.

Peter Kirby

Jim Walker originally hosted this essay in 1997 on the personal "zardoz" domain. I encountered him on Usenet a couple times. He is an arrogant man, such that he has not changed his essay one bit since 1997, despite numerous criticisms leveled against it over the years.

The main problem that the historian has with the Walker/Zardoz approach is that, just as not all eyewitness testimony is absolutely reliable, so not all hearsay testimony is absolutely reliable; but neither is the latter excluded from all account of history by that sole criterion.

It is quite difficult to talk about what a minimum "reasonable standard" entails in history in a way that is convincing. What is not convincing, however, is the idea that we should throw out all statements in the historical documents that are not the eyewitness experience of the author.

Since the general premise from the Walker/Zardoz argument is false (all hearsay accounts do not amount to credible evidence), the conclusion is not established by the Walker/Zardoz argument.