Richard Carrier

Thank you. You are surely correct. I misread what he meant.

Richard Carrier

That is a bit circular, since he has to assume his linguistic analysis is correct before he can claim there is no connection--and his linguistic analysis is not correct. Therefore (1) cannot be established. As far as I can tell, Mark would sooner have imagined Nazarene to mean "from Nazareth" than anything else.

Pardon? Where in 2:1 does it say that? It only says he was "in a house." It neither says this was his house, nor does it even contain the article (which could imply, though still would not entail, a hidden possessive). So (2) is simply not true.

As I said before, this is invalid reasoning. Matthew could omit the word because he already named Nazareth earlier, whereas Mark had not--therefore Mark had to use the name here, while Matthew did not. In like fashion Luke omitted even a reference to Galilee in his parallel passage. We cannot conclude that these omissions were due to a lacuna in their source rather than a conscious stylistic choice. Therefore (3) is inconclusive.

The parallel is 3:21, not 1:26, and there is no reason to believe 3:21 is anything but a retooling of Mark (now removing the elements that became superfluous in the context of Luke's own narrative). So (4) is irrelevant.

Richard Carrier

He merely asserts this. He cites no actual archaeological reports. So I checked those archaeological reports myself (I'll say more about that below) and they do not quite agree with his assertions.

The evidence is insurmountable that there were numerous permanent structures--most of Nazareth's buildings even before the 1st century were partially carved from the rock of the hill, in a manner similar to Pella (though unlike Pella, since the hill has a grade and is not a cliff, the structures were only completed on a diagonal--the remainder of the structures must have been constructed from some other material, but since it was all reused in later structures we have no evidence of what that material was--scholars who "assume" it was mud and thatch are just guessing).

Incidentally, those scholars who claim ancient Nazareth was in the basin are 100% wrong. All excavations of any ancient anything in Nazareth have taken place on the hill, and ancient Nazareth has been confirmed to reside pretty much exactly in the middle of modern Nazareth--squarely on the slope of the hill. Nothing lies in the basin. This is yet another reason I never trust Crossan. His claims often simply don't match the facts.

But it is true we have no evidence of paved roads. But we have excavated so little of the ancient town no one can really say what "wasn't" there (a serious fault on the part of scholars who keep asserting this without informing their readers that such claims cannot be justified by the present evidence). This is particularly so with regard to the synagogue, of which we do have physical evidence, though it is open to dispute (more on that later).


I have no doubt the town was about the size of 200-400, as most towns like it were. But I know the estimate of 200 people and 4 hectares is fallaciously based on the area contained between the ancient and the Byzantine necropoleis. Yet these necropoleis did not exist simultaneously, and since the same rock-cut structures were used for both houses, storerooms and ritual areas as well as tombs, it is probable that the Byzantines started converting living areas to tombs when the original tomb complex became filled. Thus, the area between these two graveyards (constructed over 500 years apart) does not plausibly represent the area of 1st century Nazareth. Consequently, the above estimates of size of the town and of its population are based on erroneous reasoning.


No, a polis. The word does not denote "city" in a modern sense, but "community" in a political sense. Many poleis were this tiny, even in classical Greece.


Wrong. The Franciscans led the first excavations and most later excavations have continued below the Franciscan church there--which is smack dab in the middle of the slope, not in the basin. I've seen the archaeological reports and photos and there is absolutely no doubt that ancient Nazareth--at least anything from it we have found--was built down a grade (see above regarding the structures recovered). Logic also entails this--as I said before, no one builds towns where they will flood out.

***

Now to what has been said so far (I won't continue the linguistic/textual debate--none of that is apparently from anyone who knows what they are doing: there remains no sound reason based on any method, fact or principle accepted by any real experts in paleography or linguistics to reject Mark 1:9 as an interpolation, and I'll just leave it at that):

(1) I checked Origen, Homilies 33.1, and he says only what the cities Capernaum and Nazareth symbolized (domains of Gentiles and Jews, respectively), not why those towns were chosen over others to represent these things. Therefore, this offers no help at all in figuring out why Nazareth was chosen to be the home town of Jesus. Any rural town would have done to fulfill Origen's symbolic interpretation. Therefore, the most plausible reason remaining is: it was his home town. That does not mean that it probably was his home town (that depends on the weight carried by Doherty's overall thesis against any coherent alternative theory of historicity).

(2) Nazareth archaeology. None of the books anyone has cited here contained any references at all to any archaeological reports on Nazareth. They simply make vague and unsupported assertions about what wasn't there. So I was able to track down on my own the most extensive report, that of Bagatti (Excavations in Nazareth, vol. 1, 1969), and I looked through all the subsequent reports on Nazareth from Excavations and Surveys in Israel, and this is what I found:

(a) Very little of Nazareth has been excavated, and therefore no argument can be advanced regarding what "wasn't" there in the 1st century.

(b) Archaeological reports confirm that stones and bricks used in earlier buildings in Nazareth were reused in later structures, thus erasing a lot of the evidence. Therefore, it is faulty reasoning to argue that there were no brick or stone structures simply because we have not recovered them from the relevant strata (i.e. one of Hoffman's sources assumed that the absence of this evidence entailed mud-and-thatch housing, but that is fallacious reasoning--especially since no clear evidence of mud-and-thatch housing has been found, either).

(c) One example of the above includes four calcite column bases, which were reused in a later structure, but are themselves dated before the War by their stylistic similarity to synagogues and Roman structures throughout 1st century Judaea, and by the fact that they contain Nabataean lettering (which suggests construction before Jewish priests migrated to Nazareth after the war). This is not iron clad proof of a 1st century synagogue (since the pieces had been moved and thus could not be dated by strata), but it does demonstrate a very high probability--especially since calcite bases are cheap material compared to the more expensive marble of structures archaeologists confirmed started appearing there around a century later, i.e. by the end of the 1st century AD (or early 2nd century at the latest, since marble fragments have been found inscribed in Aramaic that is paleographically dated to this period), and more extensively again in the 3rd century (when a very impressive Jewish synagogue was built there, this time using marble, which was later converted to Christian use).

(d) I confirmed beyond any doubt that Nazareth was built on a hill--more specifically, down the slope of a hill, with a convenient "brow" roughly one city block away from the edge of the ancient town as so-far determined archaeologically. Because the town was built down the slope of a hill, we have found numerous examples of houses, tombs, and storage rooms half cut into the rock of the hill, leaving a diagonal slope for structures to be built up around them to complete the chambers (as I described above). Since these structural elements were so completely removed and apparently reused by later builders, no evidence remains of what they were composed of (whether mud, brick, or stone).

The bottom line: there is absolutely no doubt that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus. Also, there is nothing I have seen in Luke or Mark that is contradicted by the physical evidence available (i.e. even if we reject the evidence there is, we still have no evidence against what they say was there, while if we accept the evidence there is, what they say was there appears to have indeed been there).

Perhaps one might still dispute whether this town was called "Nazareth" in the time of Jesus, but it is extremely improbable that Christians could have successfully renamed it in time for the Jews to accept it as the town's name in a 3rd century inscription identifying Nazareth as a town receiving priests in the late 1st century. Jews would not let heretics rename a Jewish town after a blasphemous mythic hero's birth place, nor would they accept such a name change even if the Christians persisted. Thus, the fact that Jews had no problem with the name in the 3rd century, in reference to an event that took place there in the late 1st century, argues against the town being called anything other than Nazareth in the early 1st century.

Finally, I really don't understand this nonsense about Josephus not mentioning the town. He says there were 240 cities in Galilee. He does not even come close to naming them all.

Amaleq13

Mr. Carrier,


spin has replied directly to your intial response to my paraphrase of his conclusions above so I am more than happy to withdraw as the go-between and try to figure out from your discussion what is the actual situation with regard to "Nazareth".

That seems to be true of several translations but the NIV and NASB editors apparently find sufficient reason to be more specific:

"When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home." (NASB)

"A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home." (NIV)

spin

The statement you are responding to was a summary of sorts of my comments. There is no circularity in the idea as I state it.

Earlier you said, "You claim that "the version in Mt...doesn't support Mk." That's backwards, since Matthew wrote after Mark and thus altered Mark (in far more ways than just this)." No, it's not backwards. Matt. is a witness to Mark. You are claiming that Matt. altered Mark on your assertion. Perhaps you will eventually get to my post on the subject.

The idiom eis oikon, literally "to house", is clearly "at home". Check out Aeschylus' Eumenides line 459 or Sophocles' Philoctetes line 240. (Or Liddell & Scott.) So, this:

is simply wrong. (You should use a better translation.)

You don't invalidate reasoning simply by asserting some other hypothesis which doesn't even consider the argument it is attempting to invalidate.

You need to show why Matt. would choose to use "Galilee" in preference to "Nazareth" when both have been already mentioned and one normally referred to a person using their town of origin, not their region of origin. You also need to show why, if Matthean writer had "Nazareth" in the text before him, he wouldn't have done what you proposed that Mark's writer did: "Mark would sooner have imagined Nazarene to mean "from Nazareth" than anything else." As none of the instances of nazarhnos found in Mark made it into Matt., obviously either the writer didn't make the connection you would have or "Nazareth" simply wasn't in the text.

As my earlier response should indicate, you seem to be confused in that Lucan writer was not using the same source. His wording is simply different. He's known for using a lot of other material.

As there is no language in common between Lk 3:21 and Mk 1:9, you are in no position to seriously posit this guess. Matt. is clearly using Mk 1:9, but doesn't show knowledge of Nazareth in the verse. In fact, Nazareth cannot be shown to be part of the synoptic tradition at all.

Perhaps, you'll find my post #182 in this thread of assistance for some understanding of my arguments.


spin

Richard Carrier

On the Big Bang Christianity (BBCh) dispute:

First, my position is this: BBCh has the greater prior probability (as what most often happens as new religious movements begin), there is no clear evidence against BBCh, and the chronology of evidence available fits BBCh better than any alternative. The only way to argue contrary to BBCh, as far as I have seen, is by special pleading and circular logic: by "assuming" BBCh is false and thus "reinterpreting" the evidence to fit that thesis.

Now to specific points (BTW, am I talking to Ted Hoffmann or Jacob Aliet? I don't know which is the real name--I'll stick with Hoffmann for now):

(1) I certainly allow as a remote possibility that Paul "started" Christianity, though if so he was lying in 1 Cor. 15 when he claimed the risen Christ first appeared to Cephas (or this is an interpolation), and Paul's need for Cephan approval in Gal. remains inexplicable (and would have been inexplicable even to his ancient Galatian readers). Since it is less probable that Paul would do something inexplicable and then not bother to explain it to his readers, rather than the obvious (his readers knew full well why he did this: Cephas started the movement and therefore the need of his approval was inherently obvious), and since it is less probable that Paul would get away with such a lie about Cephas than that he would tell the plain truth (e.g. telling this lie serves no purpose whatever, so the risk of getting caught in this lie is pointless) and since interpolation is inherently less probable than authenticity (in cases, like this, where there is no particular evidence of interpolation), for all these reasons I do not accept the Pauline-origin thesis (apart from the obvious fact that it was Paul's church that survived, in later incarnations, and not the orthodox Jewish church of Cephas, which does not appear to have survived the 1st century, beyond perhaps a tiny movement in Judaea).

One could still try to argue that "Cephas" is himself a mythic being, or 1 Cor. 15:4-8 is an interpolation, but I don't find either to be probable, and I find only the latter to be plausible (and FYI, I do suspect tampering in that passage, whether deliberate or accidental, though not in any way relevant to this debate).

(2) I consider complete mythicism (death of Jesus is solely mythic or celestial) as well as Ellegaard's thesis (an actual historical Jesus started things and was executed c. 100 BC, and only "appeared" mystically, perhaps under Pilate over a century later) both to be consistent with BBCh. I do not advocate any view that is "quintessentially orthodox" or "confined to the canon" and I don't know why Hoffmann would think this, since I reject the canonical theory of historicity completely (e.g. I have argued quite publicly and vehemently for the spiritual resurrection thesis and against the view of resurrection depicted in Luke and John). I have even said here that canonical historicist theories are a dead letter, and that only some other theory of historicity, one that would not please Christians at all, has any chance of being true. Nor have I even asserted historicity here, but allow complete mythicism to be true under BBCh--yet I don't see how any mythicist position can ever be called "quintessentially orthodox."

(3) Hoffmann accuses me of committing a post hoc fallacy. He seems to have a strange idea of logic. A post hoc fallacy is the fallacy of assuming causation solely on the basis of sequence--if, however, sequence is only part of an argument to the best explanation (ABE), there is no fallacy. I have only ever advanced an ABE here. I have never argued for causation "merely" on the basis of sequence. Therefore, calling my argument fallacious is wholly out of order. By "reducing" my argument to this bogus straw man, most of what Hoffmann argues ignores almost everything I actually said. I will not argue to a wall. If Hoffmann won't address my actual argument, this debate is over.

(4) To make things easier, I'll put my argument in a formal form. I'll use Bayes Theorem:

P(H/E&B) = P(H/B) x P(E/H&B) / [P(H/B) x P(E/H&B)] + [P(~H/B) x P(E/~H&B)]

H is BBCh.

P(H/B) is the prior probability of BBCh. Prior probability is derived without reference to evidence for the specific case at hand, but is derived from the frequency of causes for comparable events. For example, the prior probability that E, "Richard Carrier is rich," was caused by H, "Richard carrier won a lottery," is the frequency of rich people in the relevant context (i.e. contemporary American society) who got rich by winning a lottery rather than by some other means. Therefore, the prior probability that Christianity began via BBCh rather than ~BBCh is the frequency with which breakaway religious movements begin via BB rather than ~BB. That frequency is clearly much higher for BB than for ~BB (as causes of novel religious movements throughout history, even in antiquity, when we have access to the evidence needed to know, BB is common, ~BB is rare). Therefore, P(H/B) > P(~H/B). I see no case to be made against this fact.

P(E/H&B) is the probability of all the current evidence existing as it is on the hypothesis that BBCh, whereas P(E/~H&B) is the probability of all the current evidence existing as it is if BBCh is false. On any plain reading of the text, our earliest and most reliable source, Paul, says BBCh is true. No text says otherwise. We have no evidence of any other comparable movement besides the one Paul describes in 1 Cor. 15:3-8 existing until generations later. All the evidence we do have of different movements not only comes much later, but most of it shows internal evidence of being aware of the movement described by Paul. The only non-canonical texts that can plausibly be dated to the time of Paul or before are textually insecure (i.e. these texts as we have them cannot be confirmed to be what they looked like in his time, because we know Christians tampered with them) and contain no clear reference to any Jesus actually having died and risen and now offering forgiveness of sins.

The probability that this would be the state of the evidence on P(E/H&B) is nearly 100%, since this is exactly the way the evidence would look on BBCh (considering the fact that scant evidence survives at all).

But the probability that this would be the state of the evidence on P(E/~H&B) is significantly less than 100%, because it is a slightly unexpected coincidence that we would not have any evidence of risen-Jesus movements contemporary with Paul but only many generations later, that all contemporary non-canonical texts would just "happen" to be as hopelessly ambiguous as they are and thus fail to provide any direct proof of ~BBCh, that most if not all the late texts supporting alternative movements would just "happen" to contain internal evidence of an awareness of the Pauline-Cephaline church (even though ~BBCh predicts we should have many texts with no such awareness, rather than many deviating texts showing such awareness), and that Paul would lie about his movement's origins and/or just "happen" to never mention alternative movements that had any other origin, and that Paul would inexplicably choose to seek the approval of one randomly chosen church of many, and then not explain to the Galatians why he went to that church for approval instead of some other--or why he went to any church at all for approval.

The point is not that all those improbable things are impossible, or that I know they didn't happen, or even that they are false. The point is that all the connected details, taken together, are altogether less probable on ~BBCh than on BBCh. Even if you think the margin is small, I still cannot see any reasonable way to deny that the evidence is at least slightly unusual on ~BBCh yet fits BBCh like a glove. To put it another way, this evidence has to be dressed up with many excuses to fit ~BBCh, but with fewer (if any) excuses to fit BBCh. Therefore, you must agree than BBCh > ~BBCh, even if by a small margin.

According to Bayes, any case where P(H/B) > P(~H/B) and P(E/H&B) > P(E/~H&B), then P(H/E&B) is always greater than P(~H/E&B). Therefore, BBCh is more probable than ~BBCh. I think it is a lot more probable (by at least 2:1, IMO). But you can disagree with that--even then, I still see no way to disagree with the general conclusion that, even if it is not much more probable, BBCh is still more probable than ~BBCh.

As for my own estimate, I think P(H/B) is at least 0.66 (taking all historical examples together, for every breakaway religious movement begun without BB, at least two begin with BB), which entails P(~H/B) is 0.33; and I think P(E/H&B) is at least 0.9 (the evidence is exactly what we should expect on BBCh, but I will allow for maybe 10% leeway to account for some few examples of ambiguous evidence that one might quibble over), while I think P(E/~H&B) is no better than 0.25 (the amazing conjunction of all the facts would only happen by coincidence on ~BBCh once in four occasions, at most, IMO). This gives a result for BBCh of:

P(H/E&B) = P(H/B) x P(E/H&B) / [P(H/B) x P(E/H&B)] + [P(~H/B) x P(E/~H&B)]

P(H/E&B) = 0.66 x 0.90 / [0.66 x 0.90] + [0.33 x 0.25]

P(H/E&B) = 0.594 / [0.594] + [0.0825]

P(H/E&B) = 0.594 / 0.6765

P(H/E&B) = 0.878 = P(BBCh) = 88%

Even if we believe P(E/~H&B) is as remarkably high as 0.8 instead of 0.25 (0.8 is as high as I think P(E/~H&B) could ever be credibly estimated), we get a result of 69%. In other words, even being as charitable as possible, I don't see any way to believe ~BBCh can be true. Even at my most charitable, in my opinion it has less than a 1 in 3 chance of being a correct account of the evidence, and my strongest instincts tell me it has less than a 1 in 8 chance of being correct.

I do not offer the above as some sort of play at mathematical certainty--I am using Bayes only to fix into formal logic my judgments and reasoning (so no charge of fallacy can be leveled at me). They are still my judgments, and they are not scientific. But I don't see any reasonable way to advocate premises in this formula that would ever get the probability of ~BBCh above 50%. Indeed, I am very doubtful any reasonable argument could ever get it above 31%. Therefore, as things seem to me, ~BBCh is probably false, hence BBCh is probably true.

(5) Hoffmann wants to redefine the word "Christianity" so broadly as to render the word meaningless (rather like Laupot, who wants it to refer to any and all messianic movements with Davidic pretenders!). I see no point in such semantic games. There are only two senses of "Christianity" that matter here: the sense used in the earliest ancient sources (e.g. what did Tacitus or Pliny mean when they spoke of "Christians"?) and the sense in modern use for the movement that became the contemporary complex of Christian sects.

In the latter sense, I can see no plausible case whatsoever against the hypothesis that all modern sects can be traced historically and credibly to Paul and Cephas (regardless of whatever deviations were added in between). Perhaps that is not controversial to Hoffmann and Doherty. So that leaves the other sense: did Tacitus and Pliny (et al.) have in mind, or unknowingly refer to, a disorganized band of unrelated parallel movements worshipping various mystical Christs? Who knows? I know I don't. And I know Doherty doesn't either--regardless of what he believes, he does not know this is true. So far, I have seen no actual evidence that Tacitus or Pliny or anyone had this in mind when they used the word.

So far, for ~BBCh, all I have seen are conjectures heaped upon contentious reinterpretations of ambiguous evidence. That does not fly. I know. History is my job. So if you want to convince actual historians of your thesis, I am telling you here and now: you are guaranteed to fail. Until you start using our methods, instead of your inventive nexus of assumptions.

(6) Hoffmann says I "quite unjustifiably define Christianity under the narrow confines of Romans 16:25-26 and 1 Cor 15:3-5" even though this is "inconsistent with what we know." Know? Inconsistent with what some conjecture, maybe. But it is not inconsistent with anything we are justified in claiming we actually know. Hoffmann seems to be playing fast and loose with the definition of "knowledge." Indeed, he makes the very curious claim that my definition is not consistent with "Marcionism (who believed Jesus' presence on earth was an illusion)." I have no idea where or how he sees a contradiction. Where in Romans 16:25-26 and 1 Cor 15:3-5 does it say Jesus' presence on earth was not an illusion? Romans 16:25-26 and 1 Cor 15:3-5 are consistent with any kind of presence on earth, real or illusory, and also consistent with no presence on earth at all! Marcion not only agreed with Romans 16:25-26 and 1 Cor 15:3-5, but was deviating from sects unmistakably deriving from Paul and Cephas (Marcion, for example, was certainly fully aware of even the canonical gospels as well as Paul's letters). So Marcion fully corroborates my view, and offers no support to Hoffmann's.

(7) Hoffmann likes to advance theoretical entities as if they were facts in evidence. That is not how historians do things. To the contrary, we are specifically told not to argue in such a way. For example, Hoffmann claims that "Preachers in Q" represent an independent "Christian cult." Really? We don't even know who wrote Q, what was really in Q, when Q was written, or what its writers believed! How, then, can this theoretical "community" (for we cannot even claim to know it was a "community," rather than a single person, or isolated tradition shared by many communities) constitute a separate "sect"? We can't even establish that the Q texts were Christian (as opposed to pre-Christian wisdom literature incorporated into the Christian tradition at its origin or afterward).

Hoffmann says "the fact is that the Lost Sayings Gospel Q was used by the evangelists" but so was Daniel and the Psalms and Enoch, none of which are Christian texts. He is simply putting the cart before the horse and assuming Q represents a pre-Christian sect instead of a mystical sayings tradition shared by many Jews that was later "reinterpreted" as being the voice of "the" Jesus "seen" by Cephas and gang. Hoffmann's assumption is no more demonstrable than the other. And unproven theories cannot be used as "facts" to argue a case.

Nor even if Q came from Christ-believers (which is an unproven theory, not a fact) can Hoffmann establish what he wants--that the text derived from any sect that did not derive from Paul or Cephas. He says Q never uses the term "Christ" and excludes a creed, but why does that permit assuming its author did not believe in Christ or the Creed? A list of sayings of the lord is just that: a list of sayings of the lord. It cannot be assumed that such a list would necessarily include a creed, when its very genre is to include moral debates and apocalyptic wisdom instead. Likewise, an author could certainly choose the style of starting each declamation with "Jesus said," and that stylistic choice would not entail the author did not also believe this Jesus was the Christ, or that he hadn't died and risen again. Again, that the author of Q did not believe such things is a theory, not a fact. Again, you can't use theories as if they were facts in need of explanation.

(8) I have tried to make clear that I am not challenging the claim that "the Jesus movement was already on the scene in another form, several other forms" which were "not resurrection-centered." Hoffmann seems to keep ignoring me every time I try to point this out. Yes, certainly, as I said before, these movements may well have existed. "Jesus" is simply code for Savior, and there is no doubt there were numerous Jewish Savior movements awaiting the messiah or perhaps even claiming to communicate with a divine or mystical messiah. But these movements are not Christianity. Not a single one of them could be mistaken as Christianity in the sense of the word used by Tacitus or Pliny or anyone else in antiquity. Hence the ancient word "Christian" did not refer to these Jesus movements, nor does any current sect of "Christianity" derive from them--except through the breakaway movement started by Cephas and boosted by Paul.

So in what sense are these Jesus movements "Christian"? Only in a highly esoteric, and needlessly confusing "special" sense contrived by Doherty and gang. Get rid of the sloppy terminology and stick to the facts: had there been no appearance of a risen Christ to Cephas (probably under Pilate), and no Paul to transport this Jewish movement to the Gentiles, there would have been nothing whatsoever that you would ever call or recognize as "Christianity." Instead, the word would never have existed, and we would know nothing at all about it. At most we might still have some obscure mystical Savior texts that we could not connect to any actual Jewish sect--but we would conclude that they were nothing but Jewish mystical texts, as in fact they would be, just like Enoch or the Wisdom of Solomon.

And I will say yet again: yes, certainly, these many Jesus movements may well have inspired or influenced Christianity. That does not mean Christianity didn't begin exactly when and how Paul says it did.

(9) I never said Paul "started" Christianity. Hoffmann seems to ignore everything I have said on this point: I have consistently maintained that Paul claimed it was started by Cephas. Yes, Paul started the Gentile deviation that later evolved into all contemporary sects of Christianity, while any other sects deriving from Cephas (and not deriving from Paul) seem not to have survived the 2nd century or (at most) the 4th century. But that is not the same thing as claiming that Paul "started" the movement. Paul says Cephas did. I believe him. Because the evidence all points to that being true, and none points to any other conclusion (unless you "interpret" some evidence in a contentious, non-standard way).

(10) I see no evidence that there was any "Jamesian" church that did not derive from the Church of Cephas. So that offers no help to Hoffmann. Any changes this church made are irrelevant--the church still would not have existed but for BBCh being true. Conversely, in no sense whatever can "John the Baptist's" sect be called Christian. It certainly played a role in influencing, maybe even inspiring Christianity. But that is not the same thing as being Christianity. The Baptist's sect (which Josephus himself appears to have studied under, alongside the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes) was no more an example of "Christianity" than the Essene sect, or any of the other Jewish sects we know (I have counted over thirty by name, though some may overlap). Hoffmann then refers to a purely hypothetical "Syrian Gnosticism" yet offers no texts or any evidence at all confirming the factual existence of this hypothesized sect (nor does his only cited source), and he offers no facts pertaining to its date of existence or any evidence of connection to other cults, thus making this assertion completely useless to the present debate. That kind of sloppy argumentation is a good example of why I don't waste my time on these boards, and I am about to give up this one last foray here as yet another waste of my time.

(11) Hoffmann then says what I argue "goes against NT scholarship that believe that the gospels are independent of Paul" though again he bases this argument on his strange assumption, contrary to everything I have said, that Paul "started" Christianity.

Besides that error (which already renders his argument moot--no doubt many churches stem from Cephas not through Paul and the gospels could represent this), what NT scholarship has actually established is a lack of textual dependence on Paul (though this is actually debated, especially in the case of Luke, and thus is not an established fact, but I have no particular view of the matter). But as to ideology scholars do not assert the formal concept of independence, but difference.

Yes, obviously, they are representing a very different sectarian ideology from Paul and (apart from Luke) might have never even heard of Paul or, even if they did, might not have read any of his letters or might have disagreed with his theology. So what? We are talking about an entire generation here. That is more than enough time for as many as five teachers to intervene between Paul and, for example, Mark (e.g. someone converted by Paul in 45 could missionize someone in 50 who missionizes someone in 55, etc., until we get to Mark in 70)--and a pedigree that puts Paul and his doctrine five stages back is not going to show much actual direct influence on Mark's composition, especially when every single teacher feels free to have any "revelation" from God he needs and find any new "meaning" in scripture that suits him, to promote any new version of this doctrine he liked, and there was no church hierarchy with any power to stop any of this. And again the gospels could stem from traditions bypassing Paul anyway.

Secondly, does Mark not represent a proper Pauline teaching? Hoffmann seems to forget that the same NT scholars he is relying on also think, by and large, that Mark thought he was writing (perhaps mythicized) history or biography rather than a purely symbolic allegory. In my own study of the Markan text as pure symbolic allegory, I find that it agrees remarkably well with Pauline doctrine (on the matter of resurrection, at least, it agrees almost exactly--as I demonstrate in The Empty Tomb). In contrast, Luke seems oblivious to Mark's intent, yet uses him as a "historical" source. Matthew uses Mark to paint an entirely different allegorical message (though one I have not studied as much as Mark, but Evan Fales does a good treatment in The Empty Tomb).

Thus, each of the gospels represents a different way of interpreting the basic core gospel begun by Cephas and sold to Paul, whether they knew this or not. No doubt there was a different gospel (oral or written) for every single church there was by the late first century. That means at least 70 doctrines by 100 A.D., and perhaps as many as 30 by 60 A.D., of which the canon represents only four, all of which appear to derive from only one: Mark, either directly or (in the case of John) indirectly. Whether Paul fell in the pedigree that led to these documents is unknown and irrelevant. Cephas still did. And Paul says Cephas started it all.

(12) I don't need Acts to argue for BBCh (you will notice it is conspicuously absent from my Bayesian argument above). Nevertheless, Acts does support BBCh, and offers no support for ~BBCh. Conversely, think if the situation were reversed: if Acts clearly represented multiple independent movements and advocated one of them as the true movement, then Acts would be evidence for ~BBCh and against BBCh. Therefore, whatever weight you would give to Acts then, you must also give to Acts now--though in the opposite direction.

In Bayesian terms, the effect of this support is not great, since the content of Acts can still be explained on ~BBCh to a probability greater than 50%, though the probability that ~BBCh would lead to the content of Acts that we have is not 100%, whereas the probability that BBCh would lead to the content of Acts that we have is effectively 100%. I would assign the P(Acts/BBCh) to around 0.99 and P(Acts/~BBCh) to around 0.85 at the most (and that is being generous, e.g. I am assuming Luke had a strong motive to lie and actually did lie and no one caught him in his lie, not even rival Christian sects as far as we know, and I am assuming that all of these things had a surprisingly high probability of transpiring). But Acts is not an isolated fact, so any Bayesian argument must provide a P(E/H) for the total E, and not just E = Acts, and when we do that, the effect Acts has on P(E/H) overall is not great enough to bother (it makes a difference of only a few percentage points).

(13) Hoffmann seems not to understand my argument about miracles in Acts. "Carrier claims that because miracles in Acts have been patted down and given a haircut, we should give Acts a break and treat it as having a historical core." No, that is not my argument. My argument is that there is no possible way Luke could know that these trimmed miracles conform exactly to natural facts. In other words, it is not that Luke trimmed them down (which he did not do to the miracles in his Gospel). It is that Luke somehow, by miraculous prescience of modern scientific findings, trimmed them down to exactly what has now been scientifically established as natural phenomena. How could Luke have known how far back to trim his miracles, and exactly when and how to trim them to exactly match natural facts unknown to him at the time? Unless Luke was supernaturally psychic, he must have been relying on a genuine historical tradition. The facts alone are the only things that could have kept him so coincidentally honest. But, as I said before, this does not mean everything Luke wrote is true or reliable (I am certain Luke fabricated and embellished his account quite a lot). And, again, this is not the only argument for historical truth in Luke (e.g. Luke is incredibly knowledgeable of obscure local details in several parts of his story--especially for his narratives of the coastal Greek-Asia region, suggesting either that Luke comes from there, or was relying on a source who did; other arguments are advanced by Hemer, whom I don't always agree with, but often do).

(14) Hoffmann advances methods no historian accepts. For example, he says "I maintain that the only sections of Acts that are to be accepted as historical are those that have been corroborated with external, independent sources." Sorry, that's too black and white. Yes, without external corroboration, reliance drops--but it is a drop in degree, not "all or nothing." Indeed, most ancient history has no corroboration (consider almost everything we know about the reign of Trajan--almost no detail is found in more than one source). We assess the trustworthiness of a historical text holistically: for example, an uncorroborated statement in Polybius has a high probability of being true, because we know Polybius used very good methods and have confirmed him as reliable in many respects (though not in every respect). Conversely, an uncorroborated statement in Suetonius, though still afforded a better chance of being true than 50%, still does not rise to the probability afforded a comparable claim in Polybius. And so on. Thus, the weight of historical claims in Acts is not 100% or 0% but somewhere in between, depending on what is being claimed, why it mattered, and so on. Moreover, we do not decide solely on that, but through an ABE regarding all relevant evidence--in other words, Acts corroborates BBCh by agreeing with the basic account in Paul, and the two facts taken together increase the probability that Acts is telling the truth on some other related details, not just where they agree. Again, it does not increase this probability to 100%. But it increases it all the same. This is how historians really work: they weigh and consider evidence on a scale, and in light of the whole body of relevant evidence, and not with some black-and-white hack-and-slash technique like Hoffmann employ's.

(15) Hoffmann says "We cannot assume, on the basis of degree of supernaturalism of the events, that Luke is attempting to write history" -- since Luke says he is writing history (Lk. 1:1-4), it is an established fact that he was attempting to do so (unless, of course, he was consciously and deliberately lying--which is a theory, not a fact, and again you can't insert theories and pretend they are facts).

And again return to the miracles in Acts: since it is extremely improbable that Luke trimmed back these miracles to so presciently match modern scientific knowledge, it follows that Luke was often consciously constraining himself to honestly follow some actual source, a source that must have contained historically true accounts of "amazing events" in the early church--because no one would have known to constrain a fabrication to match future scientific knowledge, therefore the fact that these claims match scientific knowledge confirms there was only one constraint left: the truth. But if Luke was faithfully following a true historical source for these miracles (even if still adding some "rhetorical" elements to spice the narratives up, and no doubt adding propagandist spin, etc.), it follows that he must also have been following a true historical source for the context of the miracles--and therefore Acts represents a genuine historical tradition. Where, when, how far and to what extent are the next questions to ask--but that there is a genuine tradition in there somewhere seems almost certain to me (especially when we add all the other evidence for Luke's historical knowledge--again not forgetting where he errs and where he obviously is reworking his source to sell a dogma, and where he is adding dramatic assumptions to his narrative, and so on, and again not forgetting that even his honest source could still have gotten some details wrong, and so on).

(16) Hoffmann: "Paul and Silas Pray, an earthquake takes place. Prison doors open for them. Is this naturalistic enough?" Yes. That is exactly what would happen if an earthquake hit, even including the "loosing of bonds," since shackles often had the chain lopped onto a rack or bar installed in the wall, so when this rack or bar shattered or dislodged, everyone looped to it would be free. No stones are cracked. No bodies rise. No voices from heaven. No angels appear. But earthquakes were common in that area, and building structures (like doorframes) were more vulnerable to quake damage then than now.

"A viper bites Paul and injects a whole fangful of venom. Paul shakes it off uselessly. This naturalistic enough?" Yes. Not only because there is no mention in the text of it "injecting a whole fangful of venom" (why do you add this?), nor does the text give any technical designation (it simply says "snake," using a word also applied to constrictors, so we don't even know what kind of snake it was), but also because snake bites are often naturally survivable (I know of people who have been bit by rattlers many times with no ill effect). Moreover, the circumstances are scientifically realistic (in a way Luke or his source understood: the snake was drawn out by the heat of the fire Paul just built). Contrast this with talking snakes and dogs, for example, or the bedbugs that obey the commands of the Apostle John, which are reported in the Acts of Peter and the Acts of John.

"A man who never walked since birth (thus atrophied limbs) suddenly develops muscles in his legs and walks. No therapy, no excercise. Very naturalistic." Indeed. Have you not heard of exactly this story told again and again of healers even today? Naturalistic it is indeed--unless you think Popov, Baker, and Hinn really could heal the sick. Again, it is not a severed limb that is restored, open wounds healed, or anything like that. In fact there isn't even a doctor verifying "atrophied limbs." In fact no one even says this--you assumed it, trusting the testimony of unnamed villagers that he never walked--which for all they know might have been true: in their presence. Otherwise, for scientifically studied cases of this kind of psychosomatic walking disorder, see From Paralysis to Fatigue.

"Peter's mere shadow makes the lame walk, the demon posessed become sanitized, etc. People bring out their sick to the streets and line them up so that Peter's shadow can fall on them. Acts 5:15-16. Very naturalistic." Exactly. Again, similar psychosomatic healings are documented throughout history (cf. From Paralysis to Fatigue). Contrast this with Jesus reattaching a severed ear in Luke's Gospel--a detail Luke thinks to add to the story of Mark, which mentions no such healing, but does mention the severing of the ear--thus Luke "assumed" Jesus would heal the ear and so felt free to embellish the story. Yet no such embellishments occur in Acts. That's the difference between natural facts, and exaggerated facts.

Ask yourself: Why is it only the lame who are healed by Peter's shadow? Because science has confirmed psychosomatic and placebo cures for apparent paralysis in cases without a confirmed injury or lesion. Thus, it is only the lame who are healed, because only those suffering psychosomatic paralysis can be healed by such a placebo as a holy man's shadow. Luke had no way of knowing this. Likewise, the healing of the "demon possessed" is another well-documented natural phenomenon (especially in cultures where "demon possession" has a social role to play for the individual victim, a fact well studied by modern anthropologists). Contrast this with Josephus's account of an exorcism where he claims people saw a black ghostly demon extracted from the victim which the exorcist trapped in a pot, or the account of the Gadarene swine, or where the very demons from hell are often speaking out through their victims in the Gospels--a phenomenon curiously absent from Acts.

(17) Hoffmann says "I am not persuaded that Acts was written to narrate history, but to create a history that served certain agendas." Why assume these are different things? Ancient histories were routinely both. Even Polybius and Thyucidides wrote their histories to "serve certain agendas" and they certainly selected and altered things to suit that agenda, and it is all downhill from them to every other historian of antiquity. Luke is certainly changing and adding to his sources. For example, Luke is certainly writing or rewriting the speeches in Acts to sell his agenda, and recrafting other narratives to carry a moral or a point of dogma or symbolism--as did most other historians of the day. You can't take every text and every claim and treat it as black or white, as 100% true or 100% false. History doesn't work that way. If it did, we could claim to know nothing about the ancient world of any great importance.

(18) Hoffmann says "Doherty argues that Acts was fabricated to create an apostolic chain of authority frowing from Jesus, to the Apostles and to the early Church fathers." That may be what Luke was intending to do with his history, but it does not entail that Luke had to completely fabricate every single thing to do it. Indeed, it is already a mere theory that he was making these apostolic chains up--for all you really know, these apostolic changes did in fact exist, and Luke is simply recording them, perhaps even securing them further with sufficient embellishments or distortions. Again, you can't cite Doherty's theory as if it were a fact. The fact is the text. How that text came about is the theory. And there is no way to actually refute the theory that Luke is recording actual chains of Apostolic tradition--at most one can assign it varying degrees of probability based on the totality of the evidence. Once again, it is not all or nothing, black or white, truth or lie. Nothing in the world is that simple, least of all ancient histories.

(19) Hoffmann dismisses Hippolytus as unreliable--yet he is the one who was relying on Hippolytus to make his case! Maybe Hoffmann was unaware of the fact that the only source that exists for the Naasene hymn he quoted was Hippolytus. I merely pointed out the context of that hymn as it appears in Hippolytus, in which Hippolytus cites and discusses several source texts, not just that one hymn. Hoffmann can't just arbitrarily cherry-pick what he wants from Hippolytus. Why are we to trust he got the hymn right, but erred in every other quotation and paraphrase? I am not saying we can't so argue--but we have to have a good reason. Evidence must confirm our selection as apt. But if the only source we have on the Naasenes says these Naasenes derived from the Cephas sect, it cannot be argued that we have evidence they "didn't." What kind of method is that? Either we have evidence they did, or we have no evidence whether they did or not. At no point do we get out of Hippolytus evidence that they didn't derive from the Cephas sect.

This is how Hoffmann is turning proper method upside down: he has no evidence whatsoever for his theory, so what he does instead is discredit all the evidence to the contrary (even by cherry-picking a single source) and then he claims that this somehow proves his theory true. Huh? All that gets you is ignorance. It does not get you evidence for your theory. There is no evidence for ~BBCh. All Hoffmann has is the arbitrary assertion that all the evidence for BBCh isn't reliable. But that assertion does not get you to ~BBCh, even if we had reason to trust the assertion is true--and so far I have seen no good reason to believe it is. Hippolytus says the Naasene sect derives from the Cephan church and even claims to be quoting or paraphrasing their own sacred texts on this point. There is no good reason to doubt him here--and even if we did, that offers no evidence at all that the Naasene sect didn't derive from the Cephan sect. Thus, Hoffmann at best has no case, and at worst is refuted by his own sources.

(20) Hoffmann says of Theophilus "I find it invalid to dismiss his beliefs regarding what it means to be a Christian so casually yet we have all those centuries between us and Theophilus," yet my very point was "all those centuries" between Theophilus and Paul (two centuries to be exact). It does not matter what Theophilus thought. He is so incredibly late his opinions can tell us nothing whatever about how Christianity got started two hundred years before, because Theophilus himself doesn't even claim to know, and tells us nothing at all about the matter. We have no idea where Theophilus got his ideas. But we do know for a bona fide fact that Christianity of the Pauline variety was so widely represented by that time, especially in the East, that it is simply incredible to believe Theophilus had never heard of it, and just as incredible to suppose that Theophilus somehow derived his belief from an uninterrupted tradition somehow never in any way tracing back to Paul or Cephas. At any rate, there is no evidence whatever that this was the case and so Theophilus provides no evidence whatever that any form of Christianity arose independently of Paul and Cephas. Just because the evidence can fit a theory does not mean that evidence proves the theory. Theophilus can prove nothing. Because he says nothing at all about the origins of Christianity or the origins of his own Christian beliefs.

(21) Hoffmann pretends that "Didache, Barnabas, the Egerton Gospel, Sophia of Jesus Christ and the Epistle of James do not appear to have been preceded by Acts" but that is conjecture, not fact (excluding James, which is in the NT, so I don't know why it is being included here). There is no fact of the matter here--none of these documents (except perhaps for James, which is in the NT) can be dated prior to Acts on any evidence whatsoever, except mere "possibility." Once again, you can't pretend "theories" are facts. And when these documents were written is theory, not fact. And personally, I am not persuaded any of them were written in the first century, except perhaps James (but that is in the NT already) and possibly Egerton, which is a tiny fragment on an unrelated pericope and thus useless to this discussion.

(22) Hoffmann says "Carrier assumes that the sect he refers to as 'Christians' (Paul, Peter and gang) had monopoly (or copyright) over the use of 'Jesus' and the earthly salvific act and therefore, all other sects that clearly use the same ideas have ipso facto borrowed those ideas from Christianity." That is not what I argued. To the contrary, it is precisely because there was no way for them to assert control over doctrine that the religion so quickly fragmented into multiple sectarian views. This is the exact opposite of being able to claim any kind of monopoly. As to my conclusion that all later movements stem from theirs, that is not based on this straw ipso facto reasoning, but a complete, and logically valid, ABE. We do in fact have many direct reasons to believe BBCh, yet no direct reasons to believe in ~BBCh, and very few indirect reasons to believe in ~BBCh, and even those are specious at best, requiring too many groundless assumptions.

(23) I do not argue that "if it preceded Peter Paul and gang, it is not Christian." Rather, I said all the evidence we have prior to Peter and gang is not Christian. In other words, I was not making an inference--I was stating a material fact. No document dated before Cephas contains any doctrine that anyone in antiquity called Christian or would have called Christian (as opposed to merely messianic or mystical or both). Documents that speak of a mystical "Savior" are not Christian, because they contain nothing that defines Christianity as a sect apart from other Jewish sects--in particular, there is no "faith on Christ" credo, nor any historical salvation act, no resurrection, and no death. Any Jew could talk about a mystic "Savior" just as we see in Daniel or Zechariah. Just as those are not "Christian" texts, so, too, any other "Christ" or "Jesus" texts I know of that predate Cephas are no more Christian than Daniel or Zechariah.

(24) I also did not argue that "if it is post Peter Paul and gang, and contains ideas of a saviour dying on earth, it is Christian (influenced by Christianity) even if it does not say so" as a direct inference, but as a conclusion from an ABE (i.e. considering all the evidence, probably that is the case--since it is at present the most probable explanation of the facts, and there is no actual evidence for the contrary).

(25) As to the statement that "if it post-dates Peter Paul and is being used by Christians, but doesn't contain ideas of a saviour dying on earth for salvific purposes, it is still not Christian" is not anything I claimed, but obviously just as the Christians used the OT, without the OT being Christian, so could they use other documents in the same way. There is no plausible reason why Christians would only ever use texts that came from themselves--even supposing they could tell where texts came from in the first place (a particular difficulty--a Christian could "assume" a text has a Christian pedigree simply because it sounds agreeable).

(26) Hoffmann says "Carrier needs to remove Pilate from the requirement because Paul doesn't mention Pilate in his epistles." Yes, if you assume 1 Timothy is not Pauline (I am agnostic about that--the arguments against authenticity are not very convincing to me). I did not intend to make this a requirement, but a suggested possible element of a historicist theory (which can be interpreted in different ways, not just as orthodox Christians think).

Overall, I think in 80% of this Hoffmann doesn't understand what I am arguing, and in the remaining 20% he isn't using any accepted historical method to arrive at his conclusions. There is no direct evidence for ~BBCh. That is a fact. There is direct evidence for BBCh. That is a fact. The evidence there is for ~BBCh is highly speculative and open to multiple interpretations and doesn't really prove anything. The arguments against the evidence for BBCh are weak and tendentious and even if believed, get us only to agnosticism, not to ~BBCh. Finally, the evidence from the history and sociology of religion lends a higher prior probability to BB, not to ~BB. In the end, that leaves us with a higher final probability for BBCh overall. No matter how much you might debate how much more probable BBCh is than ~BBCh, BBCh is still the most probably correct theory of Christian origins. And so far I have seen nothing at all that would challenge that conclusion.

Richard Carrier

Just to correct an earlier misstatement of mine: 120-140 years separate Paul and Theophilus, not a full 200 as I had worded it. Sorry about that.

Ted Hoffman

Carrier,

Once again, thanks for your response. I am concerned that you estimate that in 80% of what you have written, I do not understand what you are arguing. You write clearly and use simple English and from my perspective, there is nothing I have found confusing or incomprehensible in your posts. You may have noticed that when Celsus was participating in the debate, where I did not understand, I asked him and asked him to simplify his presentation. If I was incapable of making sense of what you wrote, I would have asked for clarification. Worse still, in your entire post, you haven't provided a single example of an instance where you state X and I understand Y. I can understand you arguing that I have constructed strawman arguments from your statements, but the idea that I do not understand you, IMO, is remote.

I can only surmise that you have inferred that my disagreement with you is a result of my inability to understand you. I find that assesment incorrect. In any event, I am glad that you took the time to provide a detailed response. I do not wish to squander the opportunity to test Doherty's theory by misunderstanding you.

On a positive note, I am glad that you understand my positions, even though you disagree with them. Your post has a lot of implications to current NT scholarship which will emerge as we proceed.

Lets start with Nazareth.

Carrier: The evidence is insurmountable that there were numerous permanent structures [in Nazareth in the first century]

Aliet: This would render Finegan, Meyers and Strange and William E Arnal among others, wrong. Crossan and Meier both rely on Meyers and Strange. I address this below.

Carrier: Incidentally, those scholars who claim ancient Nazareth was in the basin are 100% wrong...All excavations of any ancient anything in Nazareth have taken place on the hill, and ancient Nazareth has been confirmed to reside pretty much exactly in the middle of modern Nazareth--squarely on the slope of the hill.

Aliet: The excavations of the tombs around the church of Annunciation have been used to show the limits of Nazareth not the location of Nazareth itself. So, their location on the face of the slopes pushes the location of Nazareth down the hills. I know you argue that this is fallacious reasoning and address that below.

J.D. Crossan writes in The Historical Jesus:
'The tombs, both those discovered by Bagatti and others known from earlier explorations, would have been placed outside the village and serve, in fact, to delimit its circumference for us. Looking at their locations on the plans drawn up by Bagatti (1.28) or Finegan (27), one realizes just how small the village actually was ...'

Since you cite Bagatti, he concurs with Crossan and indicates that there have been about two dozen tombs found anywhere from 60 yards to 750 yards to the north, west and south of the Church of the Annunciation. The placement of the tombs give an idea of the limits of the village. Bagatti, B. in Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplement vi, col. 318-321.

Yes, I know you claim that this is "erroneous reasoning". You state that "necropoleis did not exist simultaneously" then conjecture that "it is probable that the Byzantines started converting living areas to tombs when the original tomb complex became filled".
This does not show Bagatti et al employ "erroneous reasoning".
Could you provide us with examples of Byzantine communities that converted living areas to tombs when the tombs got full?
What exactly makes this conjecture that you posit "more probable"?

Further, in a topographical sense, Nazareth is actually placed on a low plateau. You took the word "basin" a bit too literally (an enclosed bowl) and in a restricted sense Reed and Crossan refer to the ". A basin does not preclude a proper drainage system. Meier states that it is in a sort of basin "opening to the south" The Marginal Jew, Vol I, p.301

This photo shows us Nazareth with the prominent white building with a cone-shaped black roof, near the far right side of the photograph being the Basilica of Annunciation. As the photo shows, the Nazareth area is surrounded by Hills. You state that it is on the slope of a hill. If the arrangement of the surrounding hills are regarded to make up a basin, then it is in a basin. Maybe not at the bottom of the basin, but certainly *in* it.

Lets look at the geography.

Nazareth is on a triangular plateau about 1200 feet above the Mediterranean and the surrounding hills rise to 1610 feet, and Mount Tabor, which is prominent with with an altitude of 1930 feet is 5 miles to the east. The plateau Nazareth lies on is on the southeastern slope of a ridge, which then drops in the south abruptly to the plain below.
This topographical map of traditional Nazareth, with the red arrow indicating where Nazareth is located, shows that Nazareth is on a relatively low region.

If one uses this photo in conjunction with this photo, the height of its location, relative to the surrounding hills, becomes clearer.

Carrier: I won't continue the linguistic/textual debate--none of that is apparently from anyone who knows what they are doing.

Aliet: I think spin knows what he is doing. I also think you also know what you are doing. I think it would be best if you engage without dismissing one another as being unable to judge what they are doing.

Close to a century ago, New Testament Scholars like H. Hilgenfeld, A. Schmidtke, W. Bousset, E. Schaeder and M. Goguel grappled with the question of the origin of the word Nazareth, the existence of a pre-Christian sect of Nazarenes and the existence of Nazareth as a first century city in Palestine but arrived at no definitive conclusions (IMO).

To begin with, there is no coherent etymological development of the word Nazareth. The appellation Nazarhnos in Mk. 10:47, which is translated as “Nazarene�, cannot be derived from the word Nazareth or Nazaret. Neither can Nazwraios in Matt 2:23 which is also translated as Nazarene. The gentilic form for Nazareth would be Nazarethnos . The consequence of this is that “Nazarene� cannot mean “of Nazareth� as we find in Mk. 10:47. The Greek-English Lexicon of the NT states that “linguistically, the transition from Nazaret to Nazwraois is difficult� . Gerhard Kittel detailed some of the etymological problems in The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (1967).

So, I doubt that it is the case that the Scholars who worked on these Theological Dictionaries imagined that there was a problem where there actually was none as you imply.

Carrier: Logic also entails this--as I said before, no one builds towns where they will flood out.

Aliet: First of all, the basin Nazareth is located in opens to the south - it is not exactly "land locked". Secoindly, towns do not emerge full blown overnight. A town can start with two families. Two families do not think about whether their "town" will be swept away by a flood. They think about the source of food and water and security and so on and so forth. They do not think like town planners. They do not envision a town when they build their first hut or occupy the first cave.

Carrier: Nazareth archaeology. None of the books anyone has cited here contained any references at all to any archaeological reports on Nazareth.

Aliet: Crossan and Meier refer to the following books:
Meyers, Erick M., and James F. Strange, 1981. Archaeology, the Rabbis, and Early Christianity: The Social and Historical Setting of Palestinian Judaism and Christianity. 56-57

Bagatti, Bellarmino, 1969, Excavations in Nazareth, Vol 1, From the Beginning till the XII Century, translated by E. Hoade. Publications of the Studium Bibliocum Franciscum, 17, Jerusalem, Franciscan Printing Press.

I don't have Finegan right now. But I will check though, IIRC, he refers to the above.

Carrier: (a) Very little of Nazareth has been excavated, and therefore no argument can be advanced regarding what "wasn't" there in the 1st century.

Aliet: It is correct to state that archaeology shows that there is no evidence of paved roads or permanent structures. We can take that as indicative, or withhold judgement, or assume that one day archaology will find evidence that huge permanent structures existed in Nazareth (as you are saying).

Carrier: Archaeological reports confirm that stones and bricks used in earlier buildings in Nazareth were reused in later structures, thus erasing a lot of the evidence...

Aliet: You stated earlier "The evidence is insurmountable that there were numerous permanent structures". Are you stating that even though "a lot of the evidence" has been erased, there is however "insurmountable evidence" that permanent structures existed in Nazareth in the first century?

Hmmm...I wonder why Crossan, Reed, Finegan and Meier and other Christian scholars who have defended the existence of Nazareth never found this "insurmountable evidence" that you talk of...Please confirm this for me - Bagatti provides "insurmountable archaeological evidence" that there were "that there were numerous permanent structures" in Nazareth in the first century while Meyers and Strange are busy trying to stretch the evidence to allow for mud-and-thatch housing?

Just confirm whether your source for this "insurmountable evidence" is Bagatti please.

Carrier: The bottom line: there is absolutely no doubt that Nazareth existed in the time of Jesus

Aliet: That was not at issue. Of course the place called Nazareth existed. So did the place called New York. The question is - was it a city or a village at the time of Jesus? Was there a cliff at the edge of the city? Was it built on a hill?

Yor response is yes to all of the above - correct?
Kevin Kluetz whose site is dedicated to this issue and has a lot of photos, does not agree. Neither does Crossan. Incidentally, have you been able to locate photos of the probable cliff that Jesus was thrown off from? (since you state that "there is nothing I have seen in Luke or Mark that is contradicted by the physical evidence available")

Carrier: Perhaps one might still dispute whether this town was called "Nazareth" in the time of Jesus

Aliet: Even 120 years ago, it was not exactly called Nazareth.

Carrier: Finally, I really don't understand this nonsense about Josephus not mentioning the town. He says there were 240 cities in Galilee. He does not even come close to naming them all.

Aliet: Prof. Arthur Drews did not think it was nonsense. He thought it was significant that Talmud, which mentions 63 Galilean towns, fails to mention Nazareth. And that Joshua 19:10-15 which lists the towns of the tribe of Zablon also fails to mention Nazareth. And all writings outside the gospels are silent about Nazareth accross centuries.

According to the gospels, over 4,500 people got fed thaumartugically. People like Lazarus were raised from the dead. The demon-posessed were freed and the blind saw and the lame walked.
Josephus did not find it worthy to tell people what happened to the "city of wonder" whence this miracle worker dwelt.

And if miracle workers were a dime a dozen, the crowds would not have followed him according to the story. Drews thought it was significant that this wonder city never got mentioned by Josephus. Perhaps he was misguided.

Amaleq13

I'm very disappointed and hope you will change your mind. While I clearly do not have anywhere near sufficient knowledge with regard to linguistic matters, I think you are seriously mistaken in making that same assessment of spin. I am in total agreement with Jacob's comment:

Again, I hope you will reconsider addressing this issue with him.

With regard to the relatively subdued miracles depicted in Acts versus the Gospels, I understand how that could be taken as an indicator of an author trying to conform to reality but couldn't it also result from an author, creating fiction, deliberately depicting the apostolic miracles as less miraculous than those of Jesus in the earlier portion of his efforts?

I've never heard it suggested that Josephus studied under the same sect as the Baptist. Is the evidence for this to be found in the passages where Josephus directly discusses JB or somewhere else?

spin

As Richard doesn't have sufficient knowledge with regard to linguistic matters either, you may as well let it go.


spin