Peter Kirby

See, this is why I don't enjoy typing with you. You make off-the-wall accusations that don't make any sense.

By the way, the '40 days' bit is in Acts, not Paul.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

I have seen people argue on the JM list (and somewhere else that I don't have time to track down now) that the few references to a human Jesus in Paul were forged. Is there any way of evaluating this? I think some or all of those references are missing in Marcion's version of Paul's letters, and the weight of opinion seems to be that Marcion cut things out of Paul's letters that he didn't like, but that his orthodox opponents then reinserted things and added even more language to support their position. Since all this happened in the middle of the second century, is there any way to sort this out?

Goliath

Vinnie,

Irrelevant. You have still taken his existence as an axiom. Furthermore, Jesus' existence is not evident to me. Therefore it is not in any way, shape, or form self-evident.

Your argument still fails.

Funny how you keep doing this again, and again, and again, isn't it?

Sincerely,

Goliath

keyser_soze

And btw, so that you do not think I am joining everyone in ganging up on you(which we're not doing), I am a HJ. I simply find issue with your tactics in this instance. Yes, I believe there was real live person that was attributed such supernatural acts. Doesn't mean I believe in anything more in relation to that however.

keyser_soze

"Gonna be a hot time...in the old town...tonight"

Vorkosigan

Why would I apply these criteria to known fictional sources? I'm sure you understand that there are genre differences.

That's my point, Vinnie. If Meier's criteria really sorted history from fiction, then they should do it regardless of source document genre. But of course, they can't. That's why Theissen and Merz drop them in favor of historical plausibility which works without regard to genre.

The fact that you need to refer to source document genre simply proves my point: you need a prior set of criteria to determine whether Meier's actually work.

How are you are so willing to call Mark, John, Q, Paul, M, L, Miracle List, all the sources underlying material (prayer at Gethsemane, passion narrative, Mark's controversy traditions etc.) as fiction like the LotR trilogy?

I don't think "Paul" is fiction in the sense you mean, Q is a sayings collection and obviously fictional, and the gospels are clearly fictions, and there are no underlying sources. The underlying sources were invented in an attempt to create historical plausibility for the gospel fictions, not in response to particular historical problems. In other words, their existence is suggested by the beliefs of proponents, not by examination of the data.

Reading some E.P. Sanders will do you good. He constantly stresses how the Christian creativity was relatively limited.

He has no credible way to make that determination. In point of fact, we know that Christian creativity was vast, since the Passion story is built up entirely of OT models and apparently contains no residue of history at all. Christians also added miracle stories, edited, moved, and deleted events from each other's works, and redacted, adding and subtracting as necessary. Please examine the Gospel of John and tell me again how Christian creativity was limited, not to mention bogus letters of Paul, James, Jude, etc. Sanders claim is bogus in the extreme.

Josephus mentioned Jesus as if he were historical,

...an interpolation. If it were any other text, the whole thing would be tossed as an interpolation. But because it is a "historical" reference to Jesus, scholars have struggled to save it in the face of their own principles.

as did Mark, John, Paul, and Q, M, L, and the Miracle list all mention details as if they were coiming from a historical person.

No, they mention details. Whether they are fictitious or not cannot be settled with the tools we have. After all The Golden Ass mentions even more details, but it is apparently fiction.

Not to mention the earlier traditions found within the Gospels and other works

These are conjectural and unproven, except where they refer to Mark, of course.

The embarassment in the fictional work comparison is ridiculous as well. This is one of the reasons why I don't like putting in the leg work to bother with the mythicists here. These arguments are so lame that they do not deserve a decent response.

You mean, you don't have a response because it is so true. I used embarrassment exactly the same way the gospels do; for example, it is frequently claimed that the crucifixion must be true because nobody would invent so embarrassing a story. So obviously Frodo's claiming of the Ring at the end of LotR must be true, since it is embarrassing.

The "embarrassment" of the Gospels is applied to a person whom people followed as their Lord and Savior. Not a fictional character in a book. At any rate, it is obvious in certain areas that there is theological damage control going on (e.g. the Baptism by JBap).

Because it is non-obvious that there is "theological damage control." All of the gospel writers faced the problem of competition from JBap crowd; it runs through all the gospels. They all dealt with it differently. Apparently they disliked Mark's solution of having JBap baptize Jesus, but that does not mean that the event was a real one. In Mark we are already seeing fiction. Embarassment won't work because we need to know the motive of the author, and that is unknown here.

This is not historical skepticism as these arguments have nothing to do with serious historical research. Its some sort of anti-Jesus bias.

Having no response to the colossal failure of the solutions you propose, you are forced to dismiss it as anti-Jesus bias. The alternative is too disturbing.

Most of the mythicism I see here is nothing more than an argument against fundamentalism or evangelicalism.

Justin's reponse is fine, but I don't see that scrutinizing the historical basis of Christianity is somehow verboten because some people are uncomfortable with it.

Vorkosigan

Secular Pinoy

Gasp! Is this a spoiler of some sort? You shouldn't be using that as an example it it was.

BTW, concerning methodologies and genres. Which is better, a methodology that is good, but not great, regardless of genre; or a methodology that is great in a few genres but is really bad at others? Cause if Meier's methodology was a case of the latter (big if, I'm ignorant of this subject), and it works superbly on the genre in question, then wouldn't it be better than T&M's generalized methodology? I have read none of their works, as I'm merely trying to understand your argument here:If you have other more damaging critiques of Meier, then those would be better, rather than saying that Meier's methods are not capable of cross-genre use.

keyser_soze

I think the point is that the methodolgy does GREAT at many genres. It can prove that many fictional characters that you and I take for granted as fictional are in fact historically real(only because we know much about the author...but wait a few centuries when only the work remains and see what happens) The methodology works great, just not quite the way they want it to.

Vinnie

Here we go again. Back to HJ Education 101. Many of you are guilty of a very blatant straw man argument. No one ever said Meier's criteria work on all texts or that they can be used in such ways (e.g. applied to fiction). Serious historians do not use sources in such uncritical ways and Meier does not apply his criteria in such uncritical ways. At every step of the process there are key scholarly judgements going on.

The methodology is not mechanically implemented in such a way to determine that Jesus is historical. Get that point straight right now. Many of you have been advocating one big straw man.

Methodology has to be intertwined with a discussion of the sources used. Only then can it be used to tell us what is historical about Jesus. Positive evidence for the historicity of Jesus can be produced. The methodology works in that context. I don't ever remember claiming it did more or less than that. History is all about source and method. No one uses sources uncritically. Let us repeat that again. History deals with source and method. One final time: source & method. Most of you seem to be forgetting about the discussion of sources as if it didn't exist in the journals of scholars. This is not a minor slip up. It is a very major boo boo on your parts.

I really can't waste my time with this anymore. You are accusing reconstructionists like Meier of a blind mechanical implementation of their method without proper consideration of their sources when they do properly consider their sources. If T&M don't recognize that, shame on them.

You cannot apply a method to a source without first discussing the contents and the nature of the source. The source must be first placed in its proper historical context. Q is used by the methodology under the definition/assumption that it is a listing made of the sayings attributed to an actual historical Jesus by his followers.

No one claimed that if we find a name in two documents that person or "being" is historical. Come back to reality.

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

Here we go again. Back to HJ Education 101. Many of you are guilty of a very blatant straw man argument. No one ever said Meier's criteria work on all texts or that they can be used in such ways (e.g. applied to fiction). Serious historians do not use sources in such uncritical ways and Meier does not apply his criteria in such uncritical ways. At every step of the process there are key scholarly judgements going on.

DUH, Vinnie -- and that's my point, which you consistently evade with nonsense lectures like this. I am beginning to understand why Iron Monkey is so curt with you.

Meier's criteria only work if the source documents are largely history, not largely fiction. But that is the very issue at hand with the HJ texts. In other words, deployment of Meier's criteria is circular. You need another set of criteria -- as you yourself say here -- to determine whether anything in the gospels is to be regarded as history.

The methodology is not mechanically implemented in such a way to determine that Jesus is historical. Get that point straight right now. Many of you have been advocating one big straw man.

One of YOU is deliberately misunderstanding the point at hand.

Methodology has to be intertwined with a discussion of the sources used. Only then can it be used to tell us what is historical about Jesus.

No shit, Vinnie. That's what I have been saying. Meier's criteria are worthless precisely because they cannot be used without prior decision -- and if you have that determination, you don't need Meier.

Positive evidence for the historicity of Jesus can be produced.

None. Zip. Zero. Nil. It's entirely a historical assumption. Or more precisely, inertia. The gospels are fictions.

[b]The methodology works in that context. I don't ever remember claiming it did more or less than that. History is all about source and method.

No shit. Your sources are fiction, and your methods are hopeless.

History deals with source and method. One final time: source & method. Most of you seem to be forgetting about the discussion of sources as if it didn't exist in the journals of scholars. This is not a minor slip up. It is a very major boo boo on your parts.

Fine. Give us a methodology for determining which sources about Jesus are historical, and which are fiction. Quit wasting my time with lectures that attempt to "correct" me by telling me what I've been saying all along.

I really can't waste my time with this anymore. You are accusing reconstructionists like Meier of a blind mechanical implementation of their method without proper consideration of their sources when they do properly consider their sources. If T&M don't recognize that, shame on them.

LOL. Theissen and Merz are way ahead of the curve. Vinnie, you're about 30 years out of date here. Meier's criteria are worthless. Have you even read Theissen and Merz's chapter on this? Page 116.

ou cannot apply a method to a source without first discussing the contents and the nature of the source.

No shit, sherlock. That's entirely my point. Unless we first determine whether the gospels are history, Meier is worthless. And if we could determine whether they are history, we do not need Meier. Either way, they are useless.

The source must be first placed in its proper historical context. Q is used by the methodology under the definition/assumption that it is a listing made of the sayings attributed to an actual historical Jesus by his followers.

Oh, your brilliant historical method consists of assuming there's an HJ.

No one claimed that if we find a name in two documents that person or "being" is historical. Come back to reality.

Since there is no multiple independent attestation, that's precisely what they are saying.

Vorkosigan