vtran31

By the 130s there were no records and no people left who could challenge the myth of Jesus - later critics mostly ASSUMED he was real.


didnt they find some fragment of John dating to 120 AD?

Iasion

Greetings,

ConsequentAtheist wrote :

Clearly?

Fair comment - I over-reached there

I meant the passage clearly seems to have the meaning of doubting the reality of Jesus (although a little obtuse).


Is there any reason to believe that Trypho/Tarphon said anything close to this?

As to the accuracy of Justin's recorded discussion, I cannot say for sure - the real issue is that I think it shows there were Jews in those times who doubted Jesus.


So, Yes,
I think there IS a reason to think that SOMEONE (perhaps Rabbi Tarphon) expressed doubts about Jesus to Justin - that being the fact that such a conversation is found in his writings.

Why ELSE would he write a comment about Jews doubting Jesus?

If no-one had doubted Jesus, would Justin have MADE UP a doubter? I don't think so, better to never mention doubters.

But, as there were other doubters on record, Justin would have not been the first to admit to doubters, so he could admit to doubting critics and attempt to argue against them.


In short, I argue Justin's comment is fairly good evidence that Jews of the 130s doubted the reality of Jesus - in the very period when the Gospels were first coming to light.

Are you arguing that Justin's comments DO NOT provide any evidence of early Jewish doubts about Jesus?

Quentin David Jones

Iasion

Greetings,

vtran31 wrote :

didnt they find some fragment of John dating to 120 AD?

NO!

They found a fragment, which MAY be part of John.

It MAY be from the 2nd century.

SOME people date it to early 2nd century, sometimes written as 100-150.

Some people shorten this to c.125 or 120


But it is NOT correct to say this document is DATED to 120.

Yuri,
how about a quick P52 speech?


Quentin

Peter Kirby

Justin does provide evidence that Jews casted doubt on the idea of Jesus as Messiah and held that Jesus, as one crucified, was accursed. The often-cited line from Justin (you have fashioned a Messiah for yourself) does not indicate that second century Jews had hypothesized the mythical accretion of a Galilean peasant around a heavenly savior god.

best,
Peter Kirby

Gregg

Luvluv, I got the impression from your first post that you were very open-minded about this issue. I'm not saying that by keeping an open mind, you will inevitably reach the conclusion that the mythicist position is more likely to be correct than the historicist position. However, I referred you to Earl Doherty's Web site, which, as far as I know, contains the most thorough, exhaustive statement of the mythicist case available. Most, if not all (and most likely all) of the questions and objections you've brought up against the mythicist case have already been addressed, in detail, on Doherty's site.

I don't mean to be critical, but if you are genuinely interested in understanding the mythicist case, it seems to me it would save a lot of time if, instead of giving Doherty's arguments a cursory reading and then immediately coming here and posting objections, you took the time to study the arguments (including the supplementary articles and the reader feedback sets) thoroughly and see how they all tie together. Again, I'm not saying that you have to agree with, or be convinced by, his case, just understand it. And you really can't get that from glancing through it looking for things to object to.

BTW, I think in an earlier post you stated that Doherty's arguments appear to be "circumstantial." It's a common conceit these days that people tend to equate "circumstantial evidence" with "weak evidence." However, people can be convicted on circumstantial evidence. The great LA district attorney Vincent Bugliosi, who successfully prosecuted Charles Manson, points out in his book "Outrage: The 5 Reasons OJ Simpson Got Away With Murder" that a good circumstantial evidence case is like a rope made up of many strands. The prosecutor adds strand after strand to the rope, building an ever stronger and more compelling case for the guilt of the accused. (Obviously, Simpson's prosecutors didn't do a very good job of this--and they had undeniable physical evidence as well--the accused's blood at the murder scene, fer gossakes! But I digress.)

It's my opinion that Doherty builds in extremely compelling circumstantial case for the Jesus myth. (The argument from silence is a very important part of his case, but it is by no means all of it.) Once again, after thoroughly studing his arguments, you may not agree, but at least you'll be aware of what the arguments are and be able to discuss them knowledgably.

Sincerely,

Gregg

Vinnie

You said you were looking for sources outside the NT. I had no clue why you decided to exclude those 27 works from antiquity as being incapable of providing evidence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth. One thing that ties them all together as such is their “canonical status”. I have no clue why you would reject those 27 documents and I was being sarcastic. Would you reject other Christian texts as well? It seems so as you are now saying that you want Non-Christian references. Personally, I feel that the followers of Jesus were probably most likely to actually write about him so your hand-waiving dismissal of Christian sources appears to be illogical. Also, why does the historicity of Jesus require Non-Christian attestation? What is wrong with attestation from Christian sources? I’ll go grab some popcorn. This ought to be good….

There is no reason to state you need Christian, or Roman or Jewish sources for the historicity of Jesus. You simply need credible sources, multiple attestation, etc. You appear to be advocating an ad hominem argument.

I’ve considered it at some length. As I stated, the shorter reference seems solid. Given that presumption is granted to the text until it is demonstrated that it was an interpolation it is up to those who feel the material is not authentic to demonstrate so. As far as the larger passage goes, it is certainly not authentic as it appears now. It could have been edited by a Christian or it could have been invented from whole cloth. I am somewhat agnostic on that right now.

But that is not authentic. The Christian who edited or created it talks about Jesus in a very positive way. Not Josephus himself.


Well, I find the shorter reference to be authentic and I am not convinced Josephus did not write about Jesus in the larger passage but I also am not convinced that Josephus would have written about Jesus at length. I also refer you to a citation from E.P. Sanders:


Also, arguing about what Josephus did not write in this manner (as with Paul) is highly speculative. Further, can you provide me with a reference where Josephus ever discusses Christianity (Jesus is considered the initiator of this movement right?)? If not, was Christianity (Jesus was its founder??/) that obscure as to not receive mention?

You may not know that you are not arguing the existence of Jesus of Nazareth with a conservative Christian here. I am not claiming a virgin birth, a massacre of the infants, feedings of 5,000 people, that GJohn contains much material regarding the historical Jesus of Nazareth etc. So Jesus was certainly more obscure than the evangelists who were writing about their hero made him out to be. He was not completely unknown though as he did have followers and amass a following during his lifetime and was most likely a miracle worker and exorcist.

First off, I never conceded your view that Paul makes no references to a historical Jesus. I think he does make a few. Furthermore I was NOT responding to that issue at all. That is another issue and it had nothing to do with your comments that I was actually responding to. So why you brought that up in response to my comments is beyond me. It has nothing to do with the Brown citation or my thoughts on arguments from silence which did directly address your comments on the subject.

I seem to need to remind you of what you actually said:

You brought up specific instances. For one we do not know that Paul did not write or talk about these things in other letters or during oral sermons that we do not possess knowledge of. Furthermore, I responded with the citation from Brown about the Eucharist. Paul mentioned it only because there were problems involved with it at the Corinthian church and if not for that he probably would not have mentioned it at all and you’d be arguing that there was no Eucharist in the Pauline churches because he could scarcely have failed to mention it in all his writings. Your instances were directly shown to be fallacious and inapplicable arguments from silence.

Paul was possible a traveling apostle for 20 to 30 years. He certainly may have written MANY more letters than we now know of.

Examples? Of course, again you appear to be changing the argument. My comments responded to this from you:

His readers simply may have not been interested in possibly insignificant things like what Jesus looked like etc. and they may have known a basic Jesus story which would answer their basic questions. Furthermore, there could have been other apostles they could have asked about the HJ. Even furthermore we do not have a series of dialogues between Paul and his letter recipients as if Paul and the Corinthian Church or the Roman were emailing back and forth. So we cannot say an issue about Jesus’ alleged trial or something like never came up.


Who said they were just as familiar? And if Christians have established records of what Jesus said and did why then are there 33,000 denominations? Obviously people made things up. Jesus was exalted, given a virgin birth etc. There were different Christian factions, some said the OT food laws still applied, others did not etc. Christianity certainly changed as it grew. All the material was not uniform or static. And not everyone had an exhaustive knowledge of all that Jesus said and did.

This does not mean Jesus endorsed the eating of shellfish and pork (see Paula Fredriksen’s Jesus of Nazareth for more info on this).


Lets look at the dietary laws specifically:

According to Mark Jesus declared all foods clean (including shellfish and pork). As Raymond Brown notes (Intro to the NT. p 137) "The hard-fought struggle over kosher food attested in Acts and Paul would be difficult to explain if Jesus had settled the issue from the beginning."

This is the account in the Pauline corpus:

Galatians 2:11-14 When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his
face, because he was clearly in the wrong. Before certain men came
from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived,
he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because
he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The
other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy
even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting
in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of
them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a
Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish
customs?

Here is the one in Acts:

Acts 10:9-15 About noon the following day as they were on their
journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray.
He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was
being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and
something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four
corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as
reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told
him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat."

"Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything
impure or unclean."

The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure
that God has made clean." This happened three times, and immediately
the sheet was taken back to heaven.

Paula Fredriksen relays similar thoughts to Brown's above in Jesus
of Nazareth King of the Jews (p.108) "we must take into account the
controversy in Antioch, years after this supposed encounter between
Jesus and the Pharisees, when Peter, the men sent from James, and
Paul disputed about mixed Gentile-Jewish meals taken in community
(Gal 2:11-13). If Jesus during his mission had already nullified the
laws of kashrut, this argument never could have happened."

Critical scholars recognize this as the voice of Mark rather than
the voice of Jesus. Mark's gloss stylistically intrudes upon this
passage. Here is Fredriksen on the gloss: (p.108) "Its the equivalent of a film actors stepping out of character and narrative action and speaking directly into the camera, addressing the viewing audience . . . The addition makes Mark's point, not his main character's.

Mark dismisses the concerns of Jesus' opponents—Shabbat, food,
tithing, Temple offering, purity—as the "traditions of men." To
these he opposes what Jesus ostensibly propounds as "the
commandments of God" (7:8). The strong rhetoric masks the fact that
these laws are biblical and, as such, the common concern of all
religious Jesus: It is God in the Torah, not the Pharisees in their
interpretations of it, who commanded these observances . . . [but]
Mark writes after 70 C.E., in a period when many of the cultic
purity laws were simply moot, because the Temple was no more. Few
things could bee safer than having his main character, whose
predictions of the Temple's destruction he dramatically showcased in
his Gospel, proclaim that temple ritual was not essential to true
piety."


There is much debate on the food laws. No one ever said that all the HJ material floating around was accurate or went back to Jesus. There was and is certainly much room for doctrinal disputing. Many things were framed polemically.



You are AGAIN changing the discussion. You posted this nonsensical gibberish:

To which I responded with:

Now what your response to my statement here has to with the actual points we were discussing is again, like many of your earlier responses, beyond me. You are simply changing the discussion.

Who said Jesus’ disciples falling away goes back to the historical Jesus or that is was common knowledge during Paul’s era? Critical scholars generally disregard things like the dumbness Mark attributes to Jesus’ close followers. These embellishments seemingly have to serve some polemical purpose and this is the primary reason the embarrassment criterion doesn’t work here.

It is an assumption that I personally did not make. I never said knowledge of the HJ was uniform or the same from person to person/church to church.

A few points:

Stage one Q can be argued to have been pretty early.

There may have been more literature on Jesus and some of it may have been early. We probably do not possess or have knowledge of every Christian document or material with info about Jesus on it. Paul was a traveling apostle for 30 years and may have authored many more letters we do not possess.

First off I think you underestimate the popularity of oral preaching/communication. Further more, many scholars believe that early Christians were highly eschatological. They thought the end was imminent. Why bother writing it down when the world will end soon???

Raymond brown directly addresses this issue in his Introduction to the New Testament on pages 5-7 and I cite him now:

All your objections here seem to have logical and adequate answers.

I never said you were an idiot. Reread my statement. I did state that that your accusation was idiotic. I do stand by that. You did, after all, accuse me of “making stuff up in a vain attempt to trivialize Doherty’s case.” Anyways, apology accepted.

I already addressed your ad hominem requirement for Non-Christian references above. And the “videotape criterion” comment was obvious sarcasm on my part. Scholars have long recognized the problems with our primary sources for information about the HJ but no sober scholar that I know of requires evidence for the historicity of Jesus to come via non-Christian sources and I disagree with Doherty’s evaluation of the shorter reference to Jesus extant in the manuscripts of Josephus’ works.

No I did not mean eyewitness. I do not accept the traditional authorship of the Gospels.

When did I cast judgment on Doherty’s views? I said I find the no-Jesus claim untenable as I feel there are valid reasons for accepting the historicity of a Jesus of Nazareth behind all the Christian embellishments. I do not need to know of every no-Jesus claim to find the non-historicity of Jesus implausible just as I do not need to know of every argument against the Big bang to find the theory believable. The evidence simply leads me to accept it (sure I could be wrong). And I never dismissed Doherty out of hand. Given the stuff I have read on his website I will concede that he makes a much stronger case for mythicism than the vast majority of mythicists I seem to meet on message boards do.

I eye-rolled once. There were a few other instances of sarcasm in my post and as far as what I think of you, I simply do not know you. You may be a wonderful person with whom I would get along with quite well in real life. Of course, its no secret that I disagree with most of what you’ve said in this thread but that doesn’t mean I don’t like you or that I think little of you. At this point I honestly think you argue a very weak case for mythicism but that has nothing to do with you as a person.

Vinnie

Vinnie

I think I vaguely remember that it is your position that the Gospels are second century but I'm not sure.

Anyways, there is wide critical acceptance of a date of sometime slightly before or after 70 A.D. for Mark.

There is wide Critical Acceptance that Matthew and Luke were written within 20 to 25 (at the latest) years of GMark.

There is wide critical acceptance that these two independent sources both used GMark extensively before 90 to 100 AD.

Somehow it seems that at the very least, GMark had reached the limelight much before your suggested date of 130 A.D. for the Gospels.

Vinnie

Peter Kirby

Is there a basis for the opinion of critics that the Gospel of Mark was composed circa 70, and if so, what is it? I know that some facts as a matter of practicality may be accepted on authority, but even those facts should be verifiable to a diligent researcher. Also, a discussion on the basis of evidence is always more enlightening than a "my scholar is better than your scholar" exchange. So... what would you say that the evidence is?

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

Luvluv,
Thanks for providing the verses. I think Toto, Gregg, Quentin Jones, Kirby and others have pretty much addressed the questions you asked in the previous thread. And also filled some knowledge gaps.

If there is one particularly bothersome one that you would like to be addressed, just pop it. If I cant, I am sure others will be able to address it. I have only read about half of Dohertys book so far.

Dohertys argument is not that Paul doesn't mention Jesus but that Paul doesnt treat (or mention Jesus) as a historical person but as a heavenly christ. He treats him as a spiritual person - his mention of "the twelve" after Jesus' death means he was not even aware that Judas died soon after Jesus' alleged death. He also says Jesus appeared to his disciples for a period of 40 days after his death while the Gospels have him ascending to heaven on the third day and there are many other instances where Pauls concept of Jesus is directly at odds with the Jerusalem tradition. Some have been clearly argued here to be outright lies (like the 500 figure).

Pauls kerygma had NOTHING to say about a ministry in Galilee. Doherty uses this epistolary silence to build a very strong case thet challenges the existence of a historical Jesus. I strongly suggest you read the book and understand it.

There are COUNTLESS examples that Doherty provides to demonstrate, without a shadow of doubt that Paul did not treat Jesus as a historical person.

As a side note, some of the "objections" you raise are quite feeble and tangential like:
If the Jews did not attack the existence of a historical christ, that is evidence that the Jews did not attack the existence of a historical christ: NOT evidence that a historical christ existed.

Plus a number of others. You might take a peek at my site above where I address McDowells arguments for the existence of a historical Jesus.

The best approach for you to take is to present your evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus and our job will be to take apart such arguments systematically. You evidently are operating from a grounded assumption that a historical Jesus existed and are outraged that there are people who do not. We are challenging your a priori assumptions. So first, address your assumptions. When you sit down to find the evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus, you are likely to end up agnostic about it, or end up as a Jesus myther.

But this is a good start nevertheless. And I can see the arguments you were dangling and the questions you had are running out.

Vinnie

Yes there is. The synoptic relationship can be of minor help as we know Luke and Matthew post-date Mark.

It usually is but I find outdated 100+ year old....ahhh...nevermind.


You have Brown's Intro. He pretty much lays out the standard views there:

Luke p. 273: "Gospel's Symbolic interest in Jerusalem as a Christian center does not match the outlook of 2d-century Christian literature. For Asia Minor and specifically for Ephesus the writer of Acts seems to know only a church structure of presbyters (Acts 14:23; 20:17). there is no sign of the developed pattern of having one bishop in each church so clearly attested Ignatius for that area in the decade before 110. Nor does the writer of Acts show any knowledge of the letters of Paul, which were gathered by the early 2d century."

Matthew p 216-217 paraphrased:

1) If papias knew of matt a 2d century date is ruled out.
2) Matt has no awareness of gnosticism so if it was written around Antioch it most likely was written before the time of ignatius (110) for whom gnosticism was considered a threat.
3) Furthermore Ignatius in Eph. 19 may show knowledge of matt 2 and in Smyrn 1.11 knowledge of Matt 3:15, and Didache 1.4 possible matt 5:39-41 and Did 8.2 of matt 6:9-15. See footnote 101 for more info on this.
4) The controversies with the Pharisees in matt and the condemnation of the fee use of "Rabbi" fit the post 70 early rabbinic time period well.

Mark p. 163-164 paraphrased:

1) Predates Matthew and Luke obviously
2) developed state of Greek Jesus tradition implies several decades have passed since the time of Jesus.
3) Mark fails to show any knowledge of the details of the 1st Jewish revolt against Rome in 66-70 AD and the fall of Jerusalem and Hengel dates the atmosphere of mark 13 to the period after the suicide of Nero.


I'm not bothering with John now. There are lots of different issues that can be looked at. For further argumentation with a slightly different spin, see Brian Trafford's post to Xtalk on a possible earlier than normal dating of Mark from "Fri Nov 30, 2001":

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/crosstalk2/message/8572

Vinnie