Ted Hoffman

Thanks spin for that edifying post. Lpetrich, despite his good grasp of science keeps making this basic mistake when it comes to matters HJ and I hope the clarification you have presented is sufficient once and for all.
I have challenged HJers to refer me to the best case for a HJ that exists and to date I have found none. Rick Sumner habitually referred to E.P. Sanders and I wrote a critical review of The Historical Figure of Jesus sometime ago, effectively knocking the props from under it. After looking at my review, I was chided for reviewing garbage and told to go review Jesus and Judaism which is a more serious work, by the same author which I am doing now. I dont need to mention that he has nothing, because there is nothing anyway. He is just going through the same same motions of writing about Jesus and speculating and committing logical errors. But I was challenged to review it and I will do it.
While we are at it, could Zeichman and Chris Weimer tell us now which text, from their wide reading presents the best case for a HJ?
I can say with confidence that Doherty's case presents the best case for a MJ. What about a HJ?

EarlDoherty

“Burden of proof” is, in addition, a misnomer. It implies that the mainstream or established position has provided a “proof” for its position. That is not the case (“burden of assumption” maybe).

Let's say what’s required is at a minimum “burden of attempted demonstration.” The traditional position has to some extent provided that, even if a good portion of it is simply pointing to the Gospels and saying, “See, that’s what the historical! record says and that’s what we’ve put our money on.” That puts the ball in the anti-historicist court, and their burden has been to (a) show the inadequate nature of that ‘attempted demonstration’ and (b) provide a counter-demonstration of their own. Mythicism for over a century has done precisely that, with a lot deeper and more substantial technique than the position it is questioning.

For a few decades (until about mid-20th century), mainstream scholarship made a few serious attempts to discredit contemporary mythicism (Goguel in 1926 was about the best), but they soon became outdated, and since then, mainstream scholarship has largely thought to rest on its laurels (like Michael Grant quoting others that “the mythicist case has long been roundly annihilated”). By now, and not just on the basis of my own book and website, mainstream scholarship—and note that I do not say ‘historicist’ scholarship, because there has been no scholarship designed to demonstrate the historicity of Jesus in the last half-century, except for a few brief sections in larger works trying to counter someone like Wells which do little more than appeal to the same old tired ‘proofs’ like ‘Josephus and such-and-such explanations for the silence in the epistles’—has made no further effort to discredit modern mythicist argument.

The refusal of modern scholars like the Jesus Seminar to take on The Jesus Puzzle (even when offered $5000 to do so), or even to review the book, is an example. (And it looks like even The Jesus Project is going to cop out, and I’m not just referring to Hoffman’s quoted attitude toward me. After all, it’s largely going to be made up of the same modern scholars.) This has left the ‘ball’ in the hands of people like Jeffrey Gibson, and we’ve long seen the sort of tactics they engage in. Of course, other Internet apologists not so highly qualified as the Seminar and Gibson have, in the vacuum left by official academia, taken up the task, but I would say that these have so far been more than adequately handled by the mythicist side.

So where does the “burden” presently lie, Chris (Zeichman)? It’s puerile to say it still lies with us, and not very insightful. You, personally, are at least attempting to assume a burden, though those attempts regarding my views on Q are hardly comprehensive and don’t really address mythicism per se. Others here with reasonably efficient qualifications, like Ben Smith, do their part, but still sometimes cop out when the going really gets tough (withdrawing to their own different conceptual universes). Others, who shall remain nameless, think that making a lot of noise is all that the burden requires, and you are perilously close to doing that in your “burden of proof” contention. Spin and others are right, in that it simply boils down to an appeal to authority, the authority of the established assumed position. (And you know what happens to those who naively ‘assume the position.’)

And although of course I would never presume to equate myself with Copernicus, I would say that The Jesus Puzzle, and a half-a-million (and climbing) word website, constitutes presenting evidence. Others, too, have presented evidence for the mythicist case. If the old geocentrists wanted to maintain their traditional position, they could hardly simply continue to point to the established Ptolemaic system and say, “hey, the burden of proof is on you.” Ignoring Copernicus’ evidence (though, of course, of a different kind, since it relates to purely scientific observation, whereas the historicity of Jesus cannot be so cut and dried—but it involves “evidence” nonetheless) would hardly have been a laudable position.

Considering what the geocentrists would actually have had to appeal to in countering the new Copernican system, perhaps it would not be surprising if they simply chose to do nothing other than scoff and huddle together in their different universe with eyes and ears blocked.

Earl Doherty

P.S. Perhaps to keep on the actual thread topic, this discussion should be linked with a consideration of how to determine what The Jesus Project seriously intends to do in regard to its supposed self-adopted "mandate" (as conveyed by Tom Flynn in the Free Inquiry issue I mentioned a while ago) to examine in a substantive way the question of Jesus' historicity. Since Hoffman himself has said things which suggest it may be little more than window-dressing, I think they need to be called to task about it. Does anyone have more than speculation about what they really intend? I have no wish to set myself up in some kind of antagonistic position to either Hoffman or the Project (despite his questionable words about my work, which for all I know proceeded from having bumped into Jeffrey Gibson in some hallway and asking him what he thought about the matter). But I think they need to make their position clear, and whether what we had every right to expect is really going to be delivered.

gurugeorge

I think I understand what you are doing - trying to bring some discipline into the discussion based on concepts used in the serious study of history today.

But I think it's going to be hard for some people to get their head around the bit I've bolded.

I should imagine that most people will think of there having been some event that either happened or didn't happen, and that either has or hasn't left traces (e.g. literary, archaeological, etc.) discoverable in the present that can show beyond reasonable doubt that it happened or disprove it happened.

I'd say most people would conceive of a past event itself that did happen (or a past person who did exist, e.g. this supposed "Jesus" fellow, divine avatar, demigod, whatever) as historical, as part of history, whether it's been proven to exist in terms of the apparatus of historical study or not.

Could you expand a bit on this? (I think it would be relevant to the thread, as the JP will likely be a historical study in something like the way you are talking about.)

Zeichman

Forgive me for the brevity of this response. I've got some stuff I need to work on; I'm just taking a break now.

I'm not sure it implies anything about the strength of the mainstream position, as I'm using it. The point is, you're not going to convince anyone if you constantly give yourself the benefit of the doubt (e.g., the pre-Q1 Cynic source, Daniel 7 & son of man, the fact that the Q "cross" saying fits well with both the historicist and ahistoricist paradigms). Certainly, my regrettably harsh words at the end of the first version of "Fear and Loathing" are evidence for such.

I might point out that the inadequacy and infrequency of rebuttals correlates closely to the inadequacy and infrequency of ahistoricist arguments. I would bet that if you were to ask the average NT scholar what comes to mind when they think of people who assert the ahistoricity of Jesus, crap like "Pagan Origins of the Christian Myth" or Freke and Gandy come to mind. In defense of the academy, your book was a) self-published, b) was written to be accessible, not scholarly, c) did not receive much publicity outside of the internet (at least in comparison to mainstream NT books), and d) you're arguing for a position which has been well-known to misuse evidence and e) has been associated with kooks and quacks. I would further contend that the prevalence of garbage like "pagan origins of the Christian myth" indicates that much of this sector has yet to move forward, too.

For these reasons, I think the lack of mainstream responses is justifiable. RM Price's books have been reviewed in various scholarly journals (with various conclusions as to his cogency), and I think it can be largely credited to the fact that he avoids a and c, not to mention having a couple of PhDs helps. I think that one can understandably be skeptical of a position that finds support almost exclusively among those with only a cursory familiarity of the field *coughCreationismcough*. The peer-review system is set up the way it is for a reason; if you don't participate, there's little reason for your work to get attention or be addressed. I might also add that since you build your work off of other work which is either controversial (Mack, Knox) or has not found broad acceptance (Kloppenborg) with extensive and hard-to-accept revisions, this probably doesn't help scholars accept your claims.


Why did I assume the burden of proof? Because I was aware that giving myself the benefit of the doubt wouldn't convince you or your supporters. Frankly, it's as simple as that. I would expect anyone else to do the same when addressing their opponents' works. (e.g., Wright does not justify his questionable use of the miraculous when asserting the resurrection of Jesus; Vaage and Mack do not justify his use of tradition history when re-stratifying Q with Kloppenborg's methods)

I don't mean to be snide, confrontational, or anything like that, but these seem to be obvious reasons why your work wouldn't be accepted by the academy, as is.

EarlDoherty

Everything you say may be true, Chris, or in some cases at least partially true. But I think it is also the case that "the academy" does not accept work like mine because they largely have not investigated it. They dismiss it a priori--including for some of the reasons you mention, so they are not entirely to be faulted.

But considering that the mythicist theory is gaining a lot of ground in the public eye, I think they owe it to themselves to investigate it more thoroughly than they have, even if their purpose were to be to discredit it. It's also a bit foolish to dismiss as quackery something that has been around as long and as stubbornly as the theory that Jesus never existed--especially when in their heart of hearts they know that the actual evidence for his existence is so flimsy, and becoming more so as even mainstream scholarship progresses.

I would be willing to bet dollars to doughnuts that Hoffman dismissed it not on the basis of having read the entire book, perhaps not even any of it. (Calling me a "disciple of Wells" indicates that.) If so, what his basis was, I have no idea.

And if one my 'faults' is to base my work "off of Mack, Knox and Kloppenborg"--which is more wrong than right, looking at the case as a whole (Q is the only area where I am in some line with a substantial portion of mainstream scholarship)--and the "academy" is going to dismiss me on that basis, there's something wrong there. If "controversial" is a no-no, then that speaks volumes about their outlook and hidebound conservatism.

Earl Doherty

spin

If you think of history as a discipline, it has one basic purpose in itself, the attempt to say what happened in the past. That's what a historian does: try to say what happened in the past. There are lots of things I can't say about the past because of lack of evidence: what was Julius Caesar's barber named? how many daughters did Pontius Pilate have? why did Ugarit disappear and never get rebuilt?

At the moment a historian can't answer these questions. All s/he can talk about is what has evidence it happened. The rest either did or did not happen and the historian may have evidence about some of those things that did not happen, based on what s/he does have evidence for. Evidence is the key issue. The effect is basically a tripartite division of events:

1. what has evidence for having happened;
2. what has evidence for not having happened; and
3. all the rest of the cases that may or may not have happened, but cannot be placed in one of the other categories.

The first alone is historical. The other two don't fit the category. The second is false. The third is food for speculation. Jesus fits the third category. The evidence, or lack thereof, doesn't permit better categorization. He may or may not have existed and so cannot be talked about as having existed with any meaningfulness. A historian cannot build anything useful on material from the third category except further speculation.

At any one time in the past we have evidence for a tiny percentage of people and events. That's just the way it is due to the fact that ancient writers talked about the few, not the many. Most people left no lasting traces of their lives (except in the gene pool).

Then again lots of information about the past came from misconceptions, errors, propaganda, lies, wishful thinking, homage, psychological events (such as dreams and phantasies) or even altered states (through drugs).

Jesus may be one of those people who left us no traces (despite a religion having been based on him), or he may have been engendered through non-real means. Who can find a means to get him out of this quandary?

History is the past that can be validated in hindsight. Something is historical if it has been validated. That's how I'm using the terms. I don't think that popular views of terms are necessarily useful for understanding these terms' exact usage in a context of specialist knowledge. (Just think of the one time technical term "insane" which was used popularly -- "that politician is insane", "the concert was insane" -- to such effect that it lost its technical currency.)

Have I cleared up anything?


spin

Doug Shaver

If that religion actually was based on him, then it is the trace he left. The question of Jesus' historicity just is the question of Christianity's origin.

mountainman

We know there was an explosion of Galilaean intolerance
and persecution with effect from Nicaea, the question
is "How long was the fuse" (in terms of centuries), and
who lit it (in terms of authentic authors).

Follow the evidence wherever it may lead.
We may not like the place it leads, but we
are obliged to follow it. Not all things in
this world are "Good News". Expect the
mixed bag.


Best wishes


Pete Brown

spin

The traces I intended are historical evidence. If that was not clear from my post then it's my bad.


spin

GakuseiDon

Sung to the tune "We didn't start the fire" (With apologies to Billy Joel):

Justin Martyr, Tatian, Papias, Tertullian,
Pliny Y in a way, Josephus may be okay,
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,
Paul -- or was it Marcion???

Eusebius didn't start the fire,
It was always burning,
Since the First Century was turning,
Eusebius didn't start the fire,
No he didn't light it,
But Mountainman tried to fight it...