diana

Fascinating question.

I am currently reading The Jesus Puzzle. Doherty makes some good points I'd love to see scholarly rebuttals to. Or reviews of. Or even acknowledgement of. Are they not out there? The book was published in '99.

What's holding them back?

I know scholars have their own odd communities and reasons for publishing, but when it comes to scholarly work on religious points, I'd think they'd see their way clear to address any apparently insidious claim. Perhaps it's just a matter of time.

I think they shy away from it because, while proving someone didn't exist is nearly impossible, it's shameful how much evidence they simply don't have to establish Jesus' historicity. They really don't have anything respectable to come back with.

It's one thing to argue that a common man upon who a legend had been built can't be proven to have lived 2000 years ago, but the obvious extrapolation of this tidbit is potentially volatile to believers: Is it reasonable to assume there would be absolutely no contemporary record of the god Jesus (miracles, etc)? Any discussion of a historical Jesus threatens to open this can of worms.

d

Toto

I suspect that they just know they don't have hard evidence for their position. And they know that it's not a subject that will get them tenure if they look into it.

Toto

But we have wandered off topic. This thread was meant to showcase the positive evidence for a historical Jesus. So far we have a reference in Tacitus - a copy of a copy of an ancient document, which may or may not have been forged, and may or may not have been based on reliable evidence, as opposed to rumor.

Anything else?

spamandham

Unless of course, this was a transliteration of the prophecy that he would be a 'Nazarite', which has nothing at all to do with being from a city called Nazareth.

Judges 13:7
But he said unto me, Behold, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and now drink no wine nor strong drink, neither eat any unclean thing: for the child shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb to the day of his death.

Matthew 2:23
and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene."

John 1:45
"We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."

Note that whoever put this into John, was probably already familiar with the false prophetic claim here in Matthew, which is based on a misunderstanding of Jewish scriptures.

spin

Doh! "reputable magazines" signals scholarly journals and it was referring back to your mention of "reputable historical journals". The lights are on, but is there any one home?

Roland

I've never understood how the so-called "criterion of embarrassment" can be used to argue that a character in a work of literature must be real.

After all, aren't most fictional characters "flawed" in some way? Isn't that what makes for conflict and drama? Hell, there are few characters in all of literature as "flawed" as the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology.

That would be like saying that since Zeus is often portrayed as a vain, petulant, ill-tempered, deceitful philanderer, he must, therefore, be real, since no self-respecting person would make up an object of worship that imperfect.

A "perfect" character would make for lousy drama.

dog-on

It makes sense... :Cheeky:


According to my understanding, (please correct me if I am in error here), the earliest account of the Paulines are in reference to Marcion. The Marcionite church was a sizable rival to the "catholic" church during the 2nd century.

Marcion believed that only Paul understood the mystery. Solus Paulus...

Acts is, in my view, not historical. Paul as described in Acts is very different than the Paul we find in the letters attributed to him.

Apologists spent a great deal of time refuting the claims of Marcion and the content of his "version" of the letters as well as his so-called version of Luke. It seems just as likely that Marcion had the earliest versions of these documents. Unable to simply throw Paul into the dustbin due to the sizable congregation of Marcionites and the fact that it would be in the interest of the "catholics" to integrate this congregation into theirs, certain "scribal" liberties were taken by the "catholics" with regards to the Paulines and the "ur-Lukas". In addition Acts was produced, (by the same "writer" of the canonical Luke), a rewriting of the biography of the apostle known as Paul, now Saul, but no longer Magus.

dog-on

I was really hoping for something more as well....

So far, I see the HJ position as being based purely on the apriori premise (Jesus existed) and this position is apparently held by the majority of scholars in the field.

Where's the beef?

Roger Pearse

By similar arguments all ancient history is mostly bunk...

All the best,

Roger Pearse

dog-on

...and somehow, I'm fine with that...:wave: