Vorkosigan

[b]As for the rest of your post, it is a non-sequitor. One should not argue that because "A" is not historical, "B" is not historical, as the two events are mutually exclusive. We must evaluate each claim on its own merits.

Nomad[/QB][/QUOTE]

Nomad, one way of evaluating the merit of a claim is to see how it matches up against similar claims. What kind of claim is it? What was the purpose in making it? One must evaluate itagainst the historical experience of such claims; they do not exist in isolation from each other.

Note that I am not arguing that because "A" is not historical, "B" is not historical. Rather, I am arguing that A and B, along with C, D, E and so on, are all part of a common pattern of claims in the psuedosciences and in missionary and miracle claims. They are not "ahistorical" but rather are evidence of a particular kind of history, one that is social or political in nature.

It is part of the "merit" of Paul's claim that it fits this pattern so well. This strongly suggests that Paul's claim contains the same kind of history as those other claims; in other words, you can use it to analyze the political and social aspects of Paul's movement and his thinking, but as a bald statement of fact it is manifest nonsense. There were not 500 witnesses (again, how does Paul know what the number was? Did they sell tickets?) but only a few. And what did they witness? A physical resurrection? Impossible, so no need to even consider that claim. Paul is simply indulging in typical missionary/psuedoscience/advertising braggadacio of the kind one hears constantly (Use our product! Millions sold! Sly Stallone and President Bush love it!)

Let's look at the claim again:

• (NIV)
  4
  that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
  5
  and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve.
  6
  After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

What's the context? Paul is reminding his brothers of what they should be thinking, proselytizing, pushing, promoting. He's arguing against those who claim that there is no resurrection. So he trundles out a crushing claim -- 500 people, and Cephas, and James too. Even me! He is also promoting himself "and last of all he appeared to me" he says, further on. Typical missionary bullshit. As a signal that Paul is repeating a formula he either doesn't care about or doesn't understand or has no scruples about being mendacious about, he makes a scriptural error in line 4 above -- there is no such prophecy in the OT. So which is it? Is Paul uneducated? Unfamiliar with the OT? Or unscrupulous? I know where I fall on that line.

It is hard to take seriously as a historical claim such blatant nonsense. The passage gives great insight into Paul's thinking, the arguments of doubters, and so on, but it tells us nothing about any "Resurrection."

Michael

Michael

NOGO

I would think that line 5 is also in error.
Paul is saying please believe this because
Jesus was prophecised in the OT and appeared to people, to many people! Isn't there a step missing here. How about this.
Jesus was prophecised in scriptures.
Jesus live an examplary life and made many miracles as attested by the twelve. Jesus died and resurrected. Jesus appeared to many.

Actually line four is the real clincher.
Paul sees Jesus in the scriptures.
It is hard to make a convince case for this.

NOGO

Nomad

You are forgetting that all we have of Paul's developed thought is found in his incidental letters, in which he addresses specific issues and crisis on a case by case base with specific churches and individuals. These are not sermons or homilies, and they certainly are not history books. It would be extremely odd to find, in personal correspondence from one person to another (or even to a group of people) a recapping of all of the history that has taken place between the author and his audience. At most, we will see the high points touched upon, and the body of the letter focusing on the specific issues that must be addressed at that moment in time.

Please offer some text and context for this please. I do not know what you are talking about.

What did Jesus say about people observing the Sabbath that would be relevant to any of Paul's letters?

No, my contention is that Paul was most concerned with issues that he talks about in his letters. His theology matches that of the Gospels (see for example his belief in Jesus as the Suffering Servant, Paul's emphasis on faith and love, his belief in the coming of the Kingdom of God, his instruction to serve one another, ect.). In each of these cases, the foundation of Paul's teaching is found in the sayings and acts of Jesus as given to us in the Gospels.

All of this is cool NOGO. I would not ask for more on these boards (though feel free to agree with me as often as you like! ).

Peace,

Nomad

NOGO

For NOMAD,

I do not pretend to defend Earl Doherty’s The Jesus Puzzle” here. Frankly I don’t feel qualified to do so. But I will say a thing or two.
I have only read the first post on the thread that you pointed me to. It seems to be closed so I was unable to respond there. Here are however a few thoughts on the subject.

1 John 4:2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
2 john 1:7 For many deceivers have gone out into the world, men who will not acknowledge the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh; such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist.

The first point is that the author of these lines obviously makes the acknowledgement of Jesus coming in the flesh a matter of faith and not a matter of fact. He wants people to believe and not question. You are on God’s side if you say as I do and you are evil if you don’t. Right!
Rather than present the overwhelming evidence for the subject matter it is stated as a matter of faith.
The second point is concerning the question of who are these people who do not profess that Jesus came in the flesh? Is the author talking about non-Christians?
This is unlikely.
One has to assume that there were already variations in the Christian faith and that some believer did not believe that Jesus was historical. Now before you throw the book at me and ask me for evidence consider this. Why is the author here making such a strong stand for this point of view if all the Christian community is as one on the subject. What non-Christians say could not possibly have generated such as stand. And even if it did then why is it that the author cannot offer a better defence than “you are with us or against us”.

At best I would consider these two lines to be neutral in this debate.

The next comment is actually from your debate with Earl.
It is the issue of the embarrassment concerning Jesus’ baptism.

Let me restate the case.
It is contended that if a fictional writer created a scene with Jesus receiving baptism from John he would surely see that his God is placed in an embarrassing position and would therefore remove the scene fearing criticism and disbelief. Therefore this scene is quite likely an historical event.

However if one believes that a divine Jesus started Christianity then I would suggest that such a person avoid the embarrassment argument altogether.

Why did the divine Jesus got baptised by John considering that He later send his disciples into the world to teach. Did he not know that this would be an embarrassment for them making it more difficult to convince people? Remember that this was planned form the start of the world.

So if it can be argued that a fictional writer would not have done it and the conclusion is that the event is historical then it can be argued that God would not have done it for the same reason.

You can't have it both ways.

Any argument that you may have to justify God can equally be used to justify a fictional writer.
For example if you argue that Jesus got baptised by John to serve as an example to people despite the embarrassment. Then why is this impossible for a fictional writer to have created the scene for the same reason?

Again I would say that at best the argument of embarrassment in the case of Jesus’ baptism is neutral in the Earl debate.

I would like to add that the scene of Jesus’ baptism does not read as one of cleansing of sin (Hebrew 9 tells us that there cannot be cleansing of sin without blood)
it reads more like 1 Samuel 16:13

Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brethren: and the Spirit of the LORD came upon David from that day forward.

So Jesus was anointed by John.
I associate this with the following

Matthew 10:5,6
Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.

Matthew 15
24 But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.''
25 But she came and began to bow down before Him, saying, ""Lord, help me!''
26 And He answered and said, "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs.''

Luke 1
68 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people,
69 And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David;
70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:
71 That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;
72 To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant;
73 The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
74 That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,
75 In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
76 And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;
77 To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,

Luke 24:21
But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.

All these passages point to a very different Jesus than Paul’s who see Jesus as the saviour of the world.

Nomad

No problem on this one NOGO. As no one on these boards is prepared to defend Doherty's theories here, I am not really interested in debating his beliefs any longer either. I will respond to your points however, and if you would like to begin a discussion on it, then I would only ask that you start a new thread. This one has played itself out, and we are obviously moving on to new topics again (thank goodness ).

The epistles of John (as opposed to the Gospel of John) were written primarily against a growing new heresy that came to be called Doceticism. These folks believed that Jesus "the Christ" was separate and distinct from Jesus of Nazareth. It is the latter that is called the "historical Jesus". Docetists did not deny that there was an historical Jesus, but they did deny the pre-existent God-man and Jesus as Logos theology that we find presented in the Johannine documents (GJohn and 1,2&3 John). Basically their belief was that the divine spirit of Jesus descended into the man, Jesus of Nazareth at his baptism, and left him prior to his death on the cross. Thus, the Christ was not "born" in the flesh, only Jesus was, and the Christ did not die, again, only Jesus did this.

Thus, we find John making a theological argument against this form of belief, later finding its greatest following in Marcion, and later, the gnostics. This is a long discussion of its own, however, and I will not bore you with the details unless you wish to get into it more deeply.

No, they thought that God, something perfect and holy, could not be found in matter (and especially human flesh) which was inherently evil and unholy. As I said previously, they did not deny the historical Jesus, just that the Jesus found in the Gospels and Paul's letters was God made flesh.

I'm afraid you have not understood the "criteria of embarrassment" as a means of evaluating historical evidence. As I discussed this in another thread that followed my debate with Doherty, I will refer you to it. Hopefully this will answer your questions.

<a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=6&t=000566&p=" target="_blank">The Criterion of Embarrassment</a>

Mark gives us the first account of Jesus' baptism, and in it he specifically tells us that John's baptism(s) were for the remission of sins. To have Jesus baptized by such a man runs directly counter to even the earliest Christian theology and christology which holds that Jesus was without sin. To the secular historian, the best that can be made of the evavangelists' apologetic attempts to explain the baptism is that is was clearly effective. At the same time, there are plenty of ways to have Jesus annointed as the Messiah without having him go through a ritual specifically designed to cleanse the recipiant of his/her sins.

On the contrary, if the event had been strictly fictional, this is how the Gospels would have invented Jesus' annointing. It would not have been done by a man who claimed to be offering the remission of sins. It would have been presented as a prophet annointing a king (as we see with Samuel annointing Saul and David in turn). We could then say that there is no embarrassment, and nothing for the evangelists to apologize for.

The baptism of Jesus runs counter to the early interests of the Church, and the evangelists themselves. As secular historians, and theologians alike have noted, it presents a serious problem for Christians, especially in their early days when the apologetic offered by the four Gospels had not yet had its full (and very effective) effect.

Actually, Jesus is annointed, by not by John. His annointing comes much later, by the mysterious woman who appears to be preparing him for his death (Luke 7:37-50, and especially John 12:38). John baptized Jesus, he did not "annoint" Him. And if the early Christians had thought otherwise, and believed the baptism was an annointing, they would have been quick to say so, since it would have served their purposes very well. As it was, this event did not meet any Jewish standard of annointing, and that is why no link was made between baptism and the annointing of a king in any Gospel tradition.

Your argument against the embarrassment of the baptism of Jesus simply tells us that the early Christian aplogetic for it was effective, not that it was not explaining an embarrassing, and therefore much more historically probable event.

Your references in Matthew (see also Mark 7:24-30) are additional examples of something that meets the criteria of embarrassment, this time embarrassing sayings. I did not use these in defence of the historical Jesus, however, because I did not wish to bog the debate with Doherty down with every single embarrassing thing attributed to Jesus. The baptism and crucifixion were more than enough on that count.

Notice, for example how Luke dumps any reference in Mark or Matthew to Jesus not going to the Gentiles, or His speaking poorly of them. This adds a great deal of weight to the argument that he found this saying embarrassing. Once again, sceptics will find such a saying to be much more likely to be historical than one that is not embarrassing (like the parable of the Good Samaritan, for example).

Thank you for your thoughts NOGO.

Be well.

Nomad

Lonergan

(1) I brought up the point that Christians apologists have a
need to explain why they accept certain of Grant?s
conclusions about Christianity, but reject others.
Originally posted by Lonergan:

Critical thinking never requires us to accept any, or all of the arguments put forward by another individual. If I find some of Grant's arguments to be strong, and others not, that is not only acceptable, but I would say expected, especially by scholars like Grant himself.

----------------------

I certainly agree. I still have great deal of difficulty with the McDowell?s, Ankerberg?s,
and Habermas?s. Although these apologists don?t label themselves as historians, they show
no realization that their approach is flawed. They probably don?t even have a broad picture
of what their historians wrote regarding Christianity, but are aware of certain conclusions
which serve their purposes. It is analogous to taking testimony from a witness, deleting
those witness conclusions which are unwanted, and presenting the results to a jury.

I don?t know which Grant arguments you find strong and which ones you find weak, but
once you attempt to offer historical evidence, your ?critical thinking? in evaluating
the historical evidence MUST be based only on proper historical methods. I stress this
this point because I don?t want the ?other reasons for believing? to muddy the waters.
Fair enough ?

-------------------------

For
the same historian writing in the same book using the same
principles is only being accepted for those conclusions found
agreeable to the apologist. The selectivity may be justifiable,
but there is certainly a logical requirement to offer such
justification.

You have presupposed that Grant himself was being perfectly objective in all of his arguments, even as Grant says that he was only doing the best he could.

----------------------------------

That is hardly my position. A lack of perfect objectivity is only one of the difficulties historians
have to deal with.

---------------------------

To me, perfect objectivity is a chimera, and I do not think that Grant escapes his own biases any more than I, or Brown, or Meier, or any other scholar escapes them.

We are in perfect agreement here. Use of ?historical methods? to establish Gospel stories may be
a chimera also.

-----------------------------------

In any event, When I disagree with Grant, I give my reasons for doing so, just as I would when I disagree with anyone that raises a valid (though, in my view incorrcet) point. And in those cases where the person is clearly being inconsistent, I will point this out as well. In Grant's case I will stipulate that he rarely uses a double standard in his treatment of the evidence.

--------------------------

I?m not going to ask you where and why you disagree with Grant. I do see some problems here,
however. First, we cannot begin to know exactly how Grant came to his conclusions. Secondly,
if Grant rarely uses a double standard, it is harder to justify accepting his conclusions piecemeal.
You probably see much less of Grant to reject than a fundamentalist type, but there is still a
consideration of consistency. Thirdly, the use of non-Christian historians like Grant is supposed
to buttress the apologist?s case by appealing to authority. The apologist is then required to
diminish that authority when challenged to explain why only some conclusions are to be
accepted.

------------------------------

Again, Grant sees the Gospels as historical evidence (as does Brown, Meier, and a host of other historians and scholars), and so do I.

---------------------------------

They are historical evidence of a sort, but not necessarily particularly accurate history. Now for
my biases. All of my experiences lead me to be far more skeptical of claims about heroes and
extraordinary individuals than of any other types of claims. Anyone who attended a Catholic
grammar school when real nuns still taught there would understand what I mean. At no time
have I questioned the honesty of the nuns with their fantastic stories. By the same measure, it is
not a question of Paul?s honesty, for example. What is true of the nuns is also true of the New
Age folks I have known. The stories are just as fantastic and the storytellers are just as honest.
If well-educated and honest people tell untrue stories in this modern age, what can be said for
stories of heroes and extraordinary individuals told in the first century ? There was then no
scientific knowledge to speak of and logic was almost a hidden topic.

-------------------------

Do you think the 500
witness claim is of any value for the Resurrection ?

Yes.

-----------------------------

If I write much more about the 500, I may find my posting privilege revoked. Here are just
a few points I can add. The 500 story appears once and is never seen again. It shows nothing
of the minimum detail needed to even give it the appearance of a historical fact. You say that
the Corinthians already knew the story, but knowing this story could be like knowing a nun?s
story. We didn?t question the ?witnesses? in the nun?s stories either. You would probably
like to say that some of Paul?s listeners/readers were hostile and would have checked out
the witnesses, but none of the Baptists who heard our nun?s stories checked out the witnesses
either. I hope I am not sounding too much like JP Holding.

Again I would like to thank you for responding. I have learned from the discussion although
we don?t hold parallel opinions.

Vorkosigan

Your argument against the embarrassment of the baptism of Jesus simply tells us that the early Christian aplogetic for it was effective, not that it was not explaining an embarrassing, and therefore much more historically probable event.

The criterion of embarrassment will not work for the Baptism in Mark, because we know nothing about Mark the writer or the atmosphere in which he wrote. We cannot be certain that the story was embarrassing to him, though later writers, writing a few decades after Mark, seem to have found it awkward. Do you have any information on how Mark felt about the Baptism? Perhaps he thought he was doing Jesus a favor by linking him to JtB. Perhaps he knew of a link, but didn't know how to portray, and so chose baptism. Perhaps his Christology was different than that of the other gospelers, so he did not find it embarrassing. Until you can be sure of how Mark felt, you cannot deploy the embarrassment criterion.

An additional problem is that embarrassing stories are often fictions designed to hide even more obnoxious truths. I often bring up Kunene's epic of the great Zulu leader Shaka's life, which eliminates some of the more "embarrassing" things about Shaka by substituting other "embarrassing" things. Perhaps Mark concocted a baptism story to cover an even more embarrassing story (like John the Baptist rejecting Jesus).

Michael

Reactor

John the Baptist rejecting Jesus?

Vorkosigan

Who knows? The gospels are constructions, inventions, fictions, myth, spun from history, the OT, and other sources. We know that the gospels were extensively reworked.

The point is not to make any specific historical point, but to illustrate that the criterion of embarrassment fails here because the motives of the author are unknown, and plausible alternatives exist.

Michael

NOGO

For Nomad,

Thank you for your reply. I will start a new thread.

I followed your link and I am totally confused.
Please show me where I have misunderstood the criteria of embarrassment.

Are you saying that the woman in question putting perfume on Jesus' feet meets Jewish standards for annointing?

I did not say that it met Jewish standards for annointing but then not much the Gospels say meets Jewish standards so why are you using this criterion.

In the old testament it was the high priest ( not any woman) who annointed the King (You are not adhering to the standards either). John the Baptist was not the high priest but he was a well regarded man of God. It also makes sense to have the annointing at the begining of his career not at the end.

True, it is not publisized as an annointing.
But this is perhaps understandable; it would have been seen as a challenge to the established autorities. It probably was seen as such just the same, and with the riding into Jerusalem upon a donkey it is perhaps not a wonder that he was crucified.

Take care,
NOGO

[ January 23, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>