Doctor X

Vork:

Sorry, but the Jesus Seminar merely recapitulates Schweitzer's dictum that historians find the Jesus they want. This merely tries to give it the look of a science.

As one scholar sniffed: "I think they finally concluded he once said, 'the!'"

However, another scholar "scolded" me for my opinion. "You have missed Funk's genius." "Genius?" I sniffed.

So there you go!

--J.D.

Spenser

So far I hear the movie is so good they're gonna make a book about it.....


(you can thank Leno for that one)

Cross Examiner

Mageth has contended that the Gospels [not parts mind you, but the whole kit(s) 'n' caboodle(s)!] be categorized as 'myth'. This obviously ham-fisted, unsophisticated opinion that was presented to me as fact that, when eventually scrutinized, if ever, will pale nicely in comparison to the case that even an NT amateur like myself can make that they (or, the Synoptics at least) be better categorized in the genre of Hellenistic biography (or some such parallel), or of their own genre altogether. But I'm not about to waste my time (notice the brevity of my posts in this thread since the challenge) and make this detailed case while all this red herring flaps about on the deck, too much of a distraction. To that end, I reiterate that we need to set up some terms before diving right in ... but there's been a lot of hemming and hawing and even a false start courtesy of Family Man, so, I'll wait for Mageth, chapka or Family Man to actually pick up the guantlet and back Mageth's play in a formal, regulated, agreed-upon way. I'm patient for that day. On an aside, though it was not my original intent, I am getting 'a kick', as another has suggested, at all this backpedaling. Equally interesting to me is all this ad hoc/ex post facto qualification of the Gospels as having what y'all believe to be 'mythic elements'. That of course, is more herring though until we address outlandish claim #1.

Regards,
BGic

spin

Why don't you go and play on Route 66... for your kicks? I guess though you would myth us all.

Posturing is only auto-stimulation. Your empty rhetoric says nothing. I'm still waiting for you to get past the "I have nothing to say, but I'll be nasty about whatever you say" syndrome.

Have you come to II for a constructive reason or are you a troll?


spin

Family Man

The only one here with a false start is yourself. By you own admission, you read only the first sentence of my post before dismissing it. Heck, you can't even start. And just out of curiosity, exactly what makes my post a "false start"? Perhaps because it demonstrates the difficulty of treating the gospels as history?

At least Layman could actually come up with a response when he debated this with me.

And you keep on insisting on a "formal, regulated, agreed-upon way" but you never tell us what you have in mind. Nor am I required to argue Mageth's position, if indeed you are characterizing his position correctly. My position is quite clear and spelled out in detail. The fact of the matter is you don't have an answer for it. The gospels are largely, not wholly myth, and the reasons for that are more than clear. That you dodge the issue isn't going to change that.

Family Man

Since Muhammad won't go to the mountain, I guess the mountain will have to go to Muhammad. I'll let the readers decide who's got a "false start."

BGIC is having difficulty understanding how much of the gospels are mythic in nature. For purposes of this thread, myth is defined as:



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1 a : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
2 a : a popular belief or tradition that has grown up around something or someone; especially : one embodying the ideals and institutions of a society or segment of society

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Any read of scholars dealing with the historical aspects of the gospels will tell you that the evidence for any aspect of Jesus's career is considered poor indeed. And, in fact, they readily concede that most of the gospels are more myth than historical fact. What I hope to do in this thread is to demonstrate the difficulties in treating the gospels are history instead of myth. That is not to say that there is no history in the gospels. This is definitely not a Jesus Myth thread. But neither is it wholly history.

For starters, consider what Michael Grant, a professor who wrote extensively on ancient history, had to say about the gospels in his book about the historical Jesus:


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The extraction from the Gospels of evidence about the life and career of Jesus is a singularly difficult, delicate process. Students of the New Testament, it has been suggested, would be well-advised to study other, pagan field of ancient history first -- because they are easier! For the study of the highly idiosyncratic Gospels requires that all the normal techniques of the historian should be supplemented by a mass of other disciplines, though this is a counsel of perfection which few students, if any, can even begin to meet.

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Or as A.N. Wilson pointed out:


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You cannot simply pick up a copy of the Gospels and read them as if they were history. Nor is it possible to read them as if they were imperfect history.

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Let's consider some of the questions historians ask when deciding how much weight to give to a report in an ancient document.

1. How close to the actual events were the reports made?

The gospels, by the standard analysis, were written from 40-60 years after the event. By comparison, as E.P. Sanders pointed out, the great Roman leaders were quite famous in their lifetimes and they were frequently written about by their contempories. For example, in the case of Jesus's near-contemporary, Julius Caesar, we have his eight-volume commentary on the Gallic Wars and the letters and speeches of Cicero.

Please note that, by itself, the lack of contemporary writings about Jesus does not invalidate the claims made about him. After all, we have no contemporary records of Alexander the Great either. However, this is a consideration.

2. Are there independent sources for the events being described?

Note that independent sources are more than just more than one person making the report. It is also important that the sources represent different viewpoints. For example, Caesar and Cicero were bitter enemies. Either would have been glad for the other to disappear. Thus, if one says "I did this" and the other says "Yep, he did do that", we can feel confident that the event happened as described.

We don't have that with our Christian sources. Not only the common view that Matthew and Luke copied much of their material from Mark, but that Christians very likely were working off of common sources even if they weren't directly borrowing from each other. Michael Grant makes this point when he criticizes the use of "multiple attestation" by some scholars:


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One criterion sometimes put forward is 'multiple attestation': when the same incident or theme or saying is reported in more than one Gospel, this repetition has been quoted as evidence that it is authentic, and goes back to Jesus. But this argument is valueless since evangelists demonstrably shared so much material from common sources, and even when such a common source cannot be proved or identified it may still very often be justifiably suspected.

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Again the lack of independence is not necessarily fatal to the claim that the event happened. But the lack of independence doesn't help the notion that the gospels are primarily recording historical events.

3. Is there archealogical evidence to support the claim?

In 51 B.C., Caesar engaged and captured the Gallic forces under Vercingetorix at Alesia. During the siege, Caesar reports in his commentaries that his forces dug pits, put sharpened sticks in them, then covered them with brush. Recently, archealogists unearthed some of these pits, confirming both what Caesar wrote in his commentaries and the battle itself.

There is no such archealogical evidence for the Resurrection, or for any event of Jesus's life. The best that apologists can do is to point to places that are mentioned in the Bible, such as the pool of Bethesda, and note that the information given is accurate. However, that does little to indicate that any event described in the Bible actually occurred. As Raymond Brown noted:


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Of course, this [the accurate description] does not mean that the Johannine information about Jesus has been verified, but at least the setting in which Jesus is placed is accurate.

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To put it clearly, to claim that archealogy "confirms" the events of the Bible is like saying that the historical fact that the Union Army burned Atlanta confirms the romance of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara. It doesn't.

4. What do we know of the authors?

Ancient writers such as Plutarch and Suetonius were well-known during their lifetimes, and developed a reputation for writing biographies that, while not perfect, were close to the facts as we know them. The gospel writers, on the other hand, were anonymous. As E.P. Sanders says:


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We do not know who wrote the gospels. They presently have headings: 'according to Matthew', 'according to Mark', 'according to Luke', 'according to John'....These men...really lived, but we do not know that they wrote the gospels. Present evidence indicates that the gospels remained untitled until the second half of the second century....The gospels as we have them were quoted in the first half of the second century, but always anonymously....Names suddenly appear about the year 180.

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5. What were the motivations of the authors?

The importance of this cannot be understated. It is not uncommon for historians to discount claims based on the potential bias of the reporter. Here is Michael Grant dismissing various claims made by Caesar:


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Specific self-criticism, not unnaturally, fails to find a place [in Caesar's writings]. Indeed, when things went wrong, as they did at Gergovia (52), Caesar is at pains to point out that the military rebuff was caused not by any fault of his own but by the hasty, disobedient actions of junior officers and men...We have no means of telling whether this diagnosis of defeat is correct. It may, instead, conceal some miscalculation on the part of Caesar himself, which he found it preferable to blame on his subordinates.

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We have a similar problem with the gospel authors. Were their beliefs the result of a real resurrection, or did the stories of the resurrection come about to justify the beliefs of the writers? No one questions the sincerity of the authors, but that doesn't mean they didn't embellish their stories. And, in fact, that's exactly what they did. Consider the birth narratives or the passion stories, for instance.


6. How honest and objective were the authors?

This is a major failing of many ancient writers, but a particular failing of the gospel writers. As E.P. Sanders says:


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Moreover, the early Christians also created material; they made things up. This sounds like a accusation of fraud or dishonesty, but it only a sharp way of putting a procedure that they saw quite differently. Christians believed that Jesus ascended into heaven and that they could address him in prayer. Sometimes he answered. These answers they attributed to the Lord.

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What Sanders is saying here is that the early Christians were not writing down events that actually happened, but invented material they thought must be true given their beliefs. For example, if Jesus was Lord then he must have had a miraculous birth. Scholars widely consider the birth narratives to be fabrications. They are contradictory, contain historical absurdities (people did not have to go to ancestral backgrounds to pay taxes), contain events that likely would have been reported in other accounts (the massacre of the babes), and contain fantastic elements (warnings from angels, stars guiding wise men). No serious historian would take such stories seriously.

And that is just one example, with the end result being that the accuracy of the whole has to be called into question. The question becomes, if they were willing to assume a fantastic birth, why not invent a fantastic life and a fantastic death to go along with it? The possiblity cannot be discounted.

7. Does the tale involve fantastic elements?

History is the study of human events. During the course of those events, there have been many claims of the supernatural. What you will never find is a claim that a supernatural event is a historical event.

For example, when Caesar defeated Pompeii, it was reported that a large statue at a local temple turned around, greatly impressing the locals. You won't find very many people claiming that that actually happened, at least not by supernatural means. In fact, outside of the claims of religion, I've never seen a single instance of a supernatural event being widely held as being true.

The great problem with many of the stories of the gospels are that they the ultimate supernatural events. Nor is it unusual for such stories to be made up. Several witnesses signed affadavits that they had seen the golden plates that the archangel Moroni had pointed Joseph Smith to. Outside of the Mormon Church, however, there aren't too many people who accept their claims at face value. Neither can we take the claims in the Bible seriously either. Not about supernatural claims.

What ought to be clear from the above discussion is that the claim that the gospel is recording history and not myth is simply a piece of absurd propaganda, one that does a disservice to the religion it is intended to bolster. The gospels are primarily recording myths, not history as modern scholars know it.

chapka

In other words, you're not going to even try to address any of the substantive points people have raised. You haven't even said why you disagree with Mageth's original post. Do you think there is corroborating evidence? Do you think corroborating evidence isn't needed? Do you disagree with the definition of "myth" that he gave?

Also, if you're going to accuse people of "backpedaling," please say where. I don't see that Mageth has changed his original position at all. He said in his first post on the subject:

Do you have anything substantive to say about this?

agnawstick

To sum up in layman's terms, because I don't presently have the patience to be pedantic, the new testament is a "myth" basically because there is no historical collaboration.

I am not talking about a video burned on DVD here.

If we found a scroll that we could carbon date to 30 C.E. and it said...

Dear Mom,
Holy Crap, I just saw that carpenter's son Yeshua walk on freaking water. It just blew my mind.

That statement could be false, however it is a contemporaneous account that agrees with the story.

If we found an ossuary for Lazarus, that noted he died twice, and we dated it to the period, another bonus.

If we found an account of the Roman soldier, who was blown away when his ear was reattached, again, it would lead credence to the stories.

We have found not one scrap of paper, one piece of stone, one piece of petrified wood from the time of Jesus, that can be carbon dated to his lifespan that even exists period. There is no contemporaneous record that even denies him. There is simply nothing.

Without any physical artifact, such as a piece of the cross, the spear, the holy grail, (the shroud of Turin was a hoax), and with not one piece of written evidence, we have to label the account of Yeshua's life a myth. It may be a true myth, but a myth it still is to this day.

If we get a fragment, just a scrap, dated to even 40CE that says Jesus and say Lazarus together, re-evaluations have to be made.
Until that point, the new testament can not be verified as a "true account".

It would be like waking up today and all evidence of JFK's assasination vanished. The only record left is oral tradition, which people now put to paper. 2000 years later, researchers attempt to find out what happened in Dallas in November 2003. The bullets are gone, the autopsy photos, the news reports, tv shots, zapruder film.

You just have testimony from those who claim that Oswald did this, didn't do this, the kgb killed him, etc. and trying to piece together the truth. The facts about what happened to Kennedy would be a myth. Trying to figure out what happened to Jesus makes the Kennedy assasination seem a breeze in comparison.

Doctor X

The Family Man:

Excellent summation of the problem and answer to the canard "we have more evidence for Jesus than Julius Caesar." I linked your answer into a thread over on General Religions on whether or not a historical figure existed.

--J.D.

spin

That was only ever self-delusion from those who thought about it and simple ignorance for those who didn't even investigate the data. Four legs good, two legs bad.


spin