Sparrow

I don’t know whether I was unclear or if I just hadn’t thought through my comments completely, but I feel a need to add a few more words.

Pretty much at the same time I tossed out the miracles from the Jesus story, I realized that a corresponding amount of the Old Testament was equally unreliable. Geology showed that Noah was an exaggeration at best. Evolution meant there was no talking snake or Fall. No Fall, no need for salvation. Convenient I suppose, since without a resurrection, salvation becomes an individual enterprise. I’m as certain as I can be that dead men do not get up, then walk or fly away, so the miracles are clearly myth in my view. That is my MJ. Whether there was a preacher in first century Palestine by the name of Jesus who was executed by the Romans or not, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ll ever know unless some dramatic new evidence is found. If the question of an HJ is simply on the existence of a preacher without miracles, what difference does it make? If the question of the HJ includes the miracles, then the question is already settled for us metaphysical naturalists.

Odemus

I think this point is often taken for granted as understood when it should be clarified. I totally agree.

Vorkosigan

Well, for starters, we have manuscripts of both that predate Eusebius.

Vorkosigan

darstec

Carbon dated or paleography?

mountainman

AFAIK there have been two only NT related C14 results:

1) Nag Hammadi material - circa 350-400 CE
2) Gospel of Judas - circa 240-340 CE

I am therefore left to conclude that the assertion
that there exists
relies upon an argument supported solely by the integrity
of the process of paleographic dating.

Is this a fair and correct assessment?


Pete Brown
http://www.mountainman.com.au/namaste_2006.htm
NAMASTE: “The spirit in me honours the spirit in you”

Vivisector

Basically, yes. Given a particular material (e.g., parchment vs. papyrus) and in the absence of obvious indicators/testimonies or known significant events (e.g., the destruction and abandonment of Dura Europa, where a Diatesseron fragment was found, in 256/7 CE), paleography would be used to bracket the range of manuscript production to the degree possible. A lot of qualifiers, I know, but paleography seems to be just one tool (albeit a powerful one) in the kit bag.

FWIW, I find some internet chatter about P52 having been carbon-dated to 117-138 CE, but I'm not finding anything as definitive as I'd like, and this would only provide the age of the papyrus itself.

Cheers,

V.

darstec

The paleographer may have the utmost integrity yet still be wrong. A forger intent on utilizing a certain handwritting style might be able to fool the most discerning document examiner. As a recent example, Hoffmann fooled a lot of experts in an age when science abounds and handwritting (though much of his deception involved printed material) changes by the decade.

The assumption of dating by peleography as inviolate fact is as much of a pet peave as "quoting" Papias or Africanus when one really means Eusebius. This probably holds true of a good majority of early Christian writings where nothing original exists.

Roller

Ehrman's "argument from dissimilarity" tipped the scale in favor of HJ for me too. I just ordered Doherty's "The Jesus Puzzle" so well see where the scale will move after that.

McD

Paul knew James the brother of Jesus.

Josephus knew of James the brother of Jesus.

There are three possible, realistic explanations for the reference to James the brother of Jesus (or brother of the Lord).

1. There was a guy who headed the Jerusalem church named James who was the brother of Jesus.

2. There was a subset of the Apostles named the Brethren of the Lord and this was later taken to mean that they were literally Jesus' brothers.

3. It was written in the margin of an early manuscript and a later copyist thought it belonged in the text.

It seems to me that, given the lack of evidence for '2', 1 & 3 seem the most likely, and 1 seems far more parsimonious to my mind.

Susannah

I had already come to a wondering about Paul's evident ignorance of Jesus' teaching, based on my own Bible reading, when I came to Doherty's "Jesus Puzzle". That was the clincher.

From there on, I went on to read more, pro and con, which only helped to confirm my conclusion.

(Edited because the dang thing posted too soon!)