ApostateAbe

Many of the mainstream views of 100 years ago are fringe today (Freudian psychology or eugenics, for examples). I think the camp that argued that the TF is partially authentic has won, as well as those who say that the James/Jesus blurb is completely authentic.

show_no_mercy

1. The name "Jesus" seems to go back to the earliest traditions
2. The [public] crucifixion seems to go back to the earliest traditions

I think that's about it.

ApostateAbe

Review the arguments of those who favor HJ, and see if your own arguments are better or worse. If that is the best evidence in favor of HJ, then I probably would not believe it either. I have the same suggestion for dog-on and maryhelena.

show_no_mercy

Really, all of those arguments for "HJ" treat the texts (since that's the only evidence there is) as though they were unmolested from the time of their writing until our earliest manuscripts. 2nd century Christians disagreed about everything else in regards to this supposed "historical" Jesus.

Have historical Jesus proponents even acknowledged this disagreement? They've assumed that Roman, Orthodox, or Catholic Christianity was the only sort of Christianity that existed, and treats all of the writings saved by the Roman, Orthodox, or Catholic Christianity as they are received by us today as how they were originally written; and adamantly date all these writings (in their final form) to the first century. I can't make that assumption; especially since the century before our earliest manuscripts was a century where there was bitter disagreement between Christians.

And the main weapon used in this battle for orthodoxy was interpolation and pseudepigrapha.

This is why we have a Synoptic Problem (they are all just interpolated versions of Mark), why there are only supposedly seven authentic letters written by Paul in the canon, why there's a 2 Peter, why "Nazareth" is spelled a bajillion different ways in the Greek texts, and myriads of other problems. I've not seen any argument by anyone proposing a "historical" Jesus address these problems in depth. They are all just swept under the rug. Maybe Paul did write 1 Corinthians in the first century. But is everything in 1 Corinthians dated to the first century, and written by Paul?

ApostateAbe

When there are interpolations to the earliest texts such as 1 Corinthians, there can be pretty good clues, for example: the proposed interpolation makes a theological point that was controversial at the time, the point of view matches that of a possible interpolator and not the general author, and the passage does not flow with surrounding material. That is why it is to be presumed that all contents are original to the general author unless evidence is found to the contrary. That is because the general author is simply the most likely author for any given passage that displays no hints of interolation, not because it is absolutely certain. If we could settle only on what is absolutely certain, then we would have no knowledge at all on the subject. If you come into the debate with a point of view that uncertainties undercut the arguments, then you are simply someone with a way of reasoning that modernists generally dismiss, and you can't make any progress with anyone. I suggest that you adopt the modernist method of thinking in terms of greatest probability, if only for the sake of argument.

The gospels of Matthew and Luke are not just interpolated versions of Mark. "Interpolated" may be the wrong word to use, because Mark was a source text, not an original version. And it wasn't the only source text. Q is very likely another source text, and so was L, with lesser probability. M is possibly another source text, with the least probability. The gospel of Signs is argued to be the source text for the gospel of John.

This would mean that there were at least four sources to the present four-gospel canon, which ties into the answer to your point you made about the variations in the spelling of Nazareth. All of the earliest information about Jesus was passed through oral myth before it was written down. The gospels were written in Greek, but "Nazareth" was spoken in Aramaic. There was no direct standard grammatical transformation between Greek and Aramaic. The translation would be made even more complicated by the multivarious word forms in Greek. On top of that, "Nazareth" was a small obscure rural village whose name was never written down before. Therefore, it should expected that there were many spellings of "Nazareth." As far as I know, spin is the only who makes an issue out of the many spellings of "Nazareth," and it seems a little weird to me.

You said, "...why there are only supposedly seven authentic letters written by Paul in the canon..." Can you explain? Do you expect more?

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

There have been a lot of arguments and debates already and that's great.
There have been about 30 responses or lines of argument in answer to the original question about what people think the best lines of argument for an historical Jesus are. There are a few overlaps and some of them are funny, but here they are:
Does anybody have a line of argument that is substantially different from these arguments and should be included on any list of the best arguments for an historical Jesus?

show_no_mercy

Well Mark is the source text, because they all follow the basic narrative of Mark with embellishments (hence Q, L, M, etc). Maybe "interpolation" isn't the right word. But the sentiment is the same: what was the point of Matthew, Luke (or Marcion), John, etc. writing embellishments to Mark?

They weren't writing to compliment Mark. They were writing to replace Mark.

This was my point about pseudepigrapha. If there was no battle for orthodoxy (disagreements between Christians about everything other than the name "Jesus" and his crucifixion) then you would expect maybe one or two pseudepigrahal letters by someone like Paul. But only seven out of 13 (14 if you count Hebrews) letters are "authentic". That's a 50% rate of pseudepigrapha that made it into the canon. This doesn't even count other pseudepigrapha assigned to Paul deemed to be heretical, and assumes that the seven survived without Catholic "improvements". That's a very disheartening rate of integrity, yet this lack of integrity in the writings that arrive to us via Catholic hands is glossed over by a lot of inquiries into the HJ.

Quite ironically, I think agreements with the name "Jesus", the crucifixion, and other authors mutilating Mark (if my conclusion that Mark is an attack on the historical witnesses) is acceptable, possible evidence for some sort of historical character. But it's not strong evidence, so I'll remain agnostic about it.

andrewcriddle

Take say Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana.

It contains large quantities of very hard to believe wonders. This does not in itself mean that it cannot be used as real historical evidence, and a number of scholars have done so.

They are IMO wrong but this is because on other grounds I regard Philostratus' work as a piece of historical fiction which pretends to be based on supposedly contemporary accounts which were in fact invented by Philostratus.

The weird and wonderful bits in the Life of Apollonius to not in themselves prevent the work being used as a source for the historical Apollonius.

Andrew Criddle

Kapyong

Bollocks.

The MJ theory has NOTHING to do with liars at all, nor planting evidence.
(Can you give any examples of these 'liars, or 'planted evidence' ?)

It appears you just made up that silly claim without studying any of the competing theories at all.



K.

ApostateAbe

When the Catholic churches accepted the pseudoepigrapha into the canon, their skepticism was based primarily on their dogmas, so I don't really see how it is relevant, as long as we can comfortably tell the difference between an authentic letter and a forgery. I remember that you made the point that the existence of so many known forgeries undercuts the certainty of the rest of them, but I take direct internal evidence to be much more important than an external pattern. The seven letters are accepted as authentic for reasons that you take as fundamentally unsound or insufficient, but I think such reasons are much preferable to no answers at all as to who wrote them.

You said, "Quite ironically, I think agreements with the name "Jesus", the crucifixion, and other authors mutilating Mark (if my conclusion that Mark is an attack on the historical witnesses) is acceptable, possible evidence for some sort of historical character. But it's not strong evidence, so I'll remain agnostic about it."

That is a good point. If Jesus were only mythical, then I think we may expect variations in the name. It is positive evidence, but not strong evidence. Since Jesus very soon became a myth, then it would not be entirely unexpected that there would be variations in his identity.

And perhaps a related objection can be made that should be given to Philosopher Jay: No references to Jesus or anyone much like him are found prior to the first century. We expect complicated myths to evolve over the centuries from original simplicity. The point made by Acharya S and polemicists of the 19th century, that Jesus was only a derivative of other previous god-men, would carry significant weight if it were true. Since it is contradicted by the evidence, I think I would count it as evidence for a historical Jesus.