Infidelettante

quote:
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So you don't know much about him other than he claimed to be God and that he was followed around by the Apostles and he died. Which makes for a good yarn several days later. Don't give away the ending.
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When did Meta say Jesus claimed to be God?
Meta did not say that was all we can know about Jesus. He said that is all he is arguing for at the moment if I am not mistaken.
Vinnie

Do you think Metacrock believes the Messiah was not God?

Do you believe the Messiah was not God?

Messiah = God? Yes? No?

JT

Vinnie

That being the point of my question.

Sounds like a form of multiple independent attestation.

Sure, if you mechanically and naively implement this principle. But this story is a miraculous one and can't be labeled "true" on historical grounds.

As an aside, meta's view would seemingly make Judas's death mythological. The Gospels do not agree on how Judas died. Further, if we were to apply this principle to the synoptic and Johannine sayings material which differs significantly, Meta's method might backfire.

I'm not sure I agree with all that Meta wrote in that first page there but I find his point about myths to be accurate. I think Meta's argument is that there appaers to have been a historical core guiding things in the case of Jesus. I couldn't agree with that more but I would formulate my thoughts slightly differently and arrive there through a different route. Meta can answer for himself but he did state the following:

In his view there are many difference sources and forms of the material, many of which are independent of one another.

I probably disagree at key points with Meta. Historicity arguments pertaining to the veracity of the claimed virgin birth and the raising from the dead by Jesus will never work. History has to be based upon a scientific methodology which needs to assume the constancy of the natural world. This excludes history from reconstructing actual miracles. At best it can say person x believed person y to have perfom startling deed a.

If Meta was arguing for his 11 item list on the "constancy of the story" then I would disagree. I mean, I am not sure what value most second and third century texts have on the issue? Also, as for the historicity of the virginal conception, even Raymond Brown in BBM leaves that question open. If you accept the 2ST it is multiply attested but the material does occur in a pretty late stratum and the infancy narratives are notoriously suspect on a historical level. Mot to mention it is miraculous and miracles seem outside of the purview of historical reconstruction in my opinion.

But looking at what Meta wrote:

This is just a form of multiple attestation and that is something all serious historians should use IMO. I would axe a few items from Meta's list though as being "historically certain". I do not know of a non-conservative scholar who thinks the virginal conception is historically certain. I do think there was a historical core regarding the life of Jesus and the limtied nature of the Christian creativity on the part of Paul and the synoptic authors demonstrates this IMO. I agree with Meta on this much.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I know for a fact that Meta believes in the divinity of Jesus but it is a red herring for you to bring up issues he is not arguing or attempting to defend. I do not know if Meta would necessarily equate Messiah with God. I do not think he would and I certainly do not. There were, after all, differing messianic expectations in the first century world were there not?

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

:notworthy

I also wonder about the value of listing off late apocryphal documents--some of which I haven't read myself! There is the problem of determining which of these are actually independent and so do anything more than build fiction upon the original story. I know that you and others accept that the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John are relatively independent. Are there any other documents that you would consider to be independent for the purposes of multiple attestation?

I will cut and paste something from a previous post that is relevant here:

There is something that I have sometimes wondered about multiple attestation: don't a lot of "independent" accounts go back to the testimony of one person? For example, the denials of Peter, if they had been historical. They are present both in the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John. Perhaps the author of the Gospel of Mark heard the story from Peter (or perhaps from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from Peter), and perhaps the author of the Gospel of John heard it from the beloved disciple who heard it from Peter. In that case, don't we only have one witness to the event, that of Peter? Doesn't multiple attestation for hearsay suffer from the fact that all the sources may go back to a single eyewitness? In our case, the single witness would have been the author who said, "hey, I just wrote this book based on the stories Peter told." If it's ok for multiply attested claims to go back to a single witness, then how exactly is it multiple attestation? Does it make a big difference if the tree, instead of having two nodes branching off from the root (the first person to recount the Papias tradition and the first person to recount the Justin tradition), has a single node coming from the root (the elder who is the source behind Papias and Justin)? Isn't still the same source and the same number of steps between the source and the written reports? I guess the point is, what is it about multiple attestation that makes stories that are multiply attested more reliable, if it's not that there are multiple eyewitnesses?

It would be interesting if we could find a way to justify the criteria that we use. Maybe we need criteria for selecting criteria?

best,
Peter Kirby

Vinnie

I consider the Pauline corpus to be independent of Mark. This allows MA. Paul mentions several datums about Jesus (prohibition on divorce, burial, the Twelve, had disciples, was crucified, had a brother named James, had a follower named Peter, being handed over, had a last supper, info on the apocalyptic return in Thessalonians etc., This is where my reconstruction begins. First stratum Pauline material that is multiply attested.

For sources that actually tell us about the HJ I would list the Pauline corpus, Mark, John and Q. Other sources would include L, M, Josephus, possibly Acts in a few instances, the miracle list.

I am not sure about a lot. Lets look at info about Jesus and see how many of those elements go back to the testimony of one person?

Crucifixion by Pilate.
Having a brother named James,
Baptism by JBap.
Calling disciples.
Preachign the kingdom of God.
Talking in prables.
Working exorcisms.
Working miracles.
Talked about divorce.
Had a follower named Peter, etc.

It seems that most, if not all of the facts considered bedrock (see Sander's list) do not have the problem of stemming back to one source like Peter's denial.

Yeah. But how does that effect all the aras where we don't have one potential witness? Further, Peter would constitute autobiographical testimony here which would seemingly be a lot more trustworthy than later "hearsay".

Of course. No method is full-proof or offers guarantees. But the earlier the material and the more widely attested, the higher probability it has of being accurate. That is Crossan's whole scheme. Also, if it is embarrassing or goes against the grain it is unlikely to have been created and so fourth. This, of course, follows a consideration of sources.

But no scholar that I am aware of thinks the methods used are perfect. Crossan says that in abstract theory an item in the fourth stratum with single attestation could be historical whereas a first stratum item with multiple attestation might not be historical. Reconstruction of ancient history works in terms of probability. If you require perfect methods just throw ancient history out the window.

Requiring multiple eyewitness testimony kind of kills most of ancient history. Anyways, I would say that naturally, the more widespread and earlier the tradition, the higher the probability of it going back to eyewitness tradition and being accurate. This is of course mixed in with the hesitance of Paul and the synoptics in their creative activities. This is why I agree with Crossan here. All reconstruction needs to begin with widespread tradition in the fist stratum. This is the theoretical basis of the method.

Vinnie

Vinnie

That is history based upon written documents or literary sources of course.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Meta's argument is certainly interesting and apparently powerful at first glance. But we've had this discussion before. Even within the strange confines of the explanation Meta was erected, his argument won't fly. Only a gospel with a passion story, which would not include the infancy gospels, or the Sayings gospels, would fall under this rubric. Further, we know that there were variations in the passion story. Luke knew of one in which Herod whacked Jesus, which also shows up in the gospel of Peter.

Several problems suggest themselves. We do not know what other traditions existed because this particular legend became, early on the jealous property of a Church which worked overtime and obsessively to stamp out alternative versions. I cannot, offhand, think of any "mythological" figure from the same era who had that benefit. Despite this, for many people alternative stories existed -- where was Jesus born? In a manger or a cave? How did James die? What happened to the shadowy disciples? No one really knows.

Of course, we have another problem which ironically has been raised by Meta. I personally have never felt that the Christ legends belong to the genre of myth but rather should be compared to the genre of legend* (Robin Hood, King Arthur, Paul Bunyan, etc). John Henry always dies with a hammer in his hand, even when the balladeer fiddles with other details. Camelot is always the castle of Arthur. And in legend, we do find characters nailed to general storylines even where there is great variation in the details. So I think Meta would have to take one step back and start by demonstrating that the proper genre for comparison is that of myth.

Finally, we have another problem and that is the textual evidence. In fact, there is no evidence until 70 that Jesus was executed under Pilate and so forth. Paul contains nothing of Jesus' life and apparently did not know when Jesus died. So it is really irrelevant whether or not the story shifted in later years. The earliest records of this legend lack any details of Jesus life. Only in later years did his biographers start giving him fanciful histories and a definite death.

I thank Meta for having the courage to post here. Such posts make a valuable contribution to the forum.

Vorkosigan

*with the caveat that the Christian legends are much more overtly calculated, theologically and politically, than most others.

Vinnie

That is not true. What methodology do you use to conclude that since the word Pilate does not exist in the authentic Pauline corpus that Paul was not aware of this datum? I would say silence in the OPauline corpuse works in parts. In certain places a saying would have been ideal for Paul to use. So a decent case can be made that Paul did not know it or it is possible that he did not remember it. The early Christians were people, not parrots and Raymond brown's thoughts on the Eucharist directly caution against naive reliance upon silence. Had there not been abuses with the meal at Corinth forcing Paul to address them you'd be here trumpeting the notion that Paul apparently did not believe Jesus had a final meal with his followers.

Failure to write can stem from a failure to know but I can't see how the lack of the word Pilate in the Pauline corpus means he was unaware of such an event (assuming it occured).

In reality we probably have good reason to conclude that Paul thought of Jesus' death relatively recently. Of course we would have to get into how ancient people saw causation, time and history but at any rate, Jesus having a brother alive when Paul is writing, one of Jesus' followers, Peter being alive as well. Not to mention that all evidence demonstrates that Jesus dies sometime around ca 30 ad. These all establish a timeframe. The claim that Paul had no knowledge of when Jesus died is false. Paul probably was aware of when Jesus was crucified and your uncritically equating of silence with a failure to know is a complete failure. At best you could say, we don't know if Paul knew Paul when Jesus was crucified. For some strange reason you decided to skip this step. But at any rate, the evidence leans towards Paul at the very least, had some idea.

And Paul contains several datums regarding Jesus' life.

Vinnie

Clutch

Surely this assertion requires evidence. Have you a demonstration of its falsity? Perhaps you simply meant to say "too strong" instead of "false", though, since you're normally quite careful about this sort of thing.Well, the latter hardly entails the former! Silence provides modest but eminently defeasible evidence for ignorance, so maybe "complete failure" is an slight overstatement. But even were it not an overstatement, the upshot really would be epistemic neutrality. Your claim that Paul "probably" knew when Jesus was crucified again requires evidence itself; while you might have some in mind, you've given no reason to take the claim seriously. Better. But not "at best" -- more like, "most strictly", with a weak suggestion from silence that Paul did not know.

Vinnie

My comment was not too strong. Vork's claim that Paul had no knowledge of when Jesus died was based on Paul not mentioning an exact date. That argument is certainly false. Sure it could be true that Paul does not know the date but regardless, the argument advocated is false. This isn't a game of luck here.

At any rate, we have several historical datums:

Remember, its simple mathematics. If Paul though some of Jesus' followers were alive in the 50's then calculate the age. Even at the far end where we assume say James or Peter was young when Jesus died (both of which seem improbably) and very old when Paul wrote we wouldn't be too far off. Say James was 10 when Jesus died or Peter was 20 and James was 50 around the year 50 a.d and Peter was 60. We would see that Jesus' death occured no later than 10 A.D. The same for Peter or any other follower. Unless your denying the historicity or attributions of these figures as well?

We know that Jesus was crucified ca 30 ad.
Had a brother named James whom Paul mentions.
Had a follower named Peter whom Paul knew personally.
Paul converted early, was personally aquanted with the early church and passed on tradition he received.

Not to mention the elements of the Jesus story Paul does know of (burial, last supper and being handed over, having Twelve disiples, crucifixion, etc.

You tell me what the evidence favors. I say that Paul most likely did know when Jesus was crucified (probably not an exact date or time, just a general timeframe is all I would argue).

Furthermore, I would point to the imminent return expected by early Christians (see 1 Thessalonains 4 and the return of the Lord which was expected soon). This is persuasive argument for me. You may think I am reading "return" into the text but its only natural given the historical datums in Paul. Jesus hadn't returned yet and the Thessalonians were already worried by the year 50 a.d.

Who said it did?

As stated, it depends on the nature of the silence, the knowledge we have, the nature of the author and his known redactional tendencies and care for details, etc. Mechanical implementation of arguments from silence are of little use to us here. Vork advocated a very naive argument from silence from my perspective. But for the sake of being fair, in his defense it is probably bolstered by his incorrect background view that says Paul has 0 references to a historical Jesus.

Anyways, the food laws are a prime examle of where an argument from silence seems to work. If Jesus really said all foods were declared clean and Paul knew it we would proably expect him to have cited it. Further, if Jesus settled the issue from the beginning how could the disputing found in Galatians ever occur? And Peter's vision in Acts? Matthew and Luke's failure to reprint Mark's gloss?

I would contend that an argument from silence is powerful here. But I do not think "Paul not mentioning Pontius Pilate" equates with "Paul did not know of Jesus crucifixion by Pilate". At the same time I could not say Paul knew of it unless I could demonstrate that it was very widespread knowledge and then the probability that Paul knew such information would go up.

I provided such.

No, my usage was correct. In that scenario it would be one of the many cases in ancient history where the most prudent course of action is historical agnosticism.

Vinnie