Celsus

Sigh...

You take a website citing Charlesworth from 1973, who bases his finds on Haas, N. "Anthropological Observations on the Skeletal Remains from Giv'at ha-Mivtar," Israel Exploration Journal 20 (1970), pp. 38-59. Yet I had already cited the same James H. Charlesworth from 1992, which if you had bothered to check, specifically revises Haas' findings and disagrees with Haas' reconstruction of the Jehohanan crucifixion ("The original publication of the anthropological findings in 1970 by N. Haas was severely flawed, in part because of the haste in which the remains were reburied to satisfy conservative religious authorities. A reappraisal of the evidence was demanded. It was conducted in 1985 (my emphasis) and attempted to remove the errors contained in the original article." p. 279).

I don't have time for this. Best of luck with your apologetics.

Joel

Evangelion

Specifics, please...? If the analysis is flawed, why is it flawed? And does this mean I am equally at liberty to dismiss the analysis provided by Barnett's buddy?

Be sure and let him know, won't you?

Evangelion

Back later to address Vork's latest here, and Mr Kirby's latest on the other thread.

Evangelion

Vork -

OK. I take Crossan's point here. I accept that it is difficult for an atheist or agnostic to read the Gospels as a historical account when there is already so much theological baggage left over from the OT. I can see how this would lead to the conclusion that the NT authors simply fabricated the events to meet the requirements of OT Messianic prophecy (even though I reject this explanation myself.)

But none of this explains why the early Christians would run the risk of inventing a story which could be so easily disproved.

It connotates neither. It is, in fact, merely indicative of the frustation I am currently feeling towards an ignorant critic (Toto) who consistently misrepresents the source material and demonstrates his near-total lack of familiarity with same. In my experience, atheists are always keen to expose the ignorance of Christians when they step beyond their area of expertise, and must therefore expect the same in return.

Toto is not a sacred cow by virtue of being an atheist, and if he makes a stupid comment, I'll call him on it.

I apologise if I have come across as too abrasive. But you must understand that it is intensely frustrating to deal with an opponent who consistently demonstrates (a) ignorance of the source material, (b) mismanagement of the material with which he is familiar, (c) an extraordinary confidence in superficial arguments, and (d) the treatment of semantic parallels as objective evidence. I am incredulous at the amount of nonsense an atheist will swallow, whilst simultaneously deriding a Christian for allegedly practicing the very same errors upon which his own thesis is predicated.

I see my exchanges with Toto as analogous to many of the exchanges I have witnessed between educated atheists and Christians who are ignorant of the evolutionary process, yet still presume to criticise it.

Thus:

• Christian: [Makes some ludicrous claim about evolution.]
  
• Atheist: You're misrepresenting evolution. That's not how it's defined.
  
• Christian: [Attacks Lamarckianism, believing that this is equivalent to "disproving evolution."]
  
• Atheist: Lamarckianism was debunked ages ago. Please present a valid argument which accurately defines evolution and accurately represents evolutionary theory.
  
• Christian: [Confuses macro evolution with micro evolution.]
  
• Atheist: These are two different concepts. They may look the same to you, but they're actually quite different.
  
• Christian: [Alludes to the alleged deathbed confession of Darwin.]
  
• Atheist: He never actually said that. It's an apocryphal quote.
  
• Christian: [Misquotes Stephen Gould.]
  
• Atheist: He didn't say that. You're misquoting him. Here is the original quote, in context...

And so on, and so forth.

Toto's main problem is his lack of familiarity with the source material. That is quite inexcusable, and I make no apology for criticising him on this basis. As to my mockery of his argument, perhaps a little context may help.

Some years ago, while I was still at university, I wrote an essay for a course entitled "Christianity and the Classical World." The course was intended to provide studentrs with an understanding of the relationship between Christianity and its pagan environment, with particular reference to the rise and reforms of Constantine.

Here follows a paraphrase of several observations which I made in reference to the development of the Christian faith:

• The influences which led to these early heresies, were many and varied. Christianity was born and raised within the nation of Israel, a multicultural centre which contained elements of Edomite, Samaritan, Egyptian, Hebrew and Roman culture. The most notable feature was the turmoil of warring sects.
  
  [...]
  
  Jewish society then, was complicated by a multiplicity of beliefs, practices and warring cultural factions. It is inconceivable that, faced with such tremendous pressures from every side, Christianity could have remained untouched.
  
  We may sum up the position of affairs at the opening of the Christian era by saying that Judaism contributed to the culture of the time monotheism and morality, the Romans organisation, the Greeks philosophy, the East mysticism, and a gift for worship.
  
  Of all these Christianity was to take advantage.

I thought I had done rather well in equating various aspects of the Christian faith (both doctrine and practice) with the sources from which I believe them to have been taken. (See the highlighted text.) To me, this was a perfectly logical conclusion and perfectly consistent with the historical data.

But my lecturer (himself a recognised authority on this period) took issue with my conclusions. Slashing through my paragraph with a series of bold red lines, he wrote the following remarks in the margin of my essay:

• Your discussion of the various cultural forces at work is sound, although here you become the victim of too little learning combined with a boldness of style.
  
  Sounding plausible doesn’t make it right, as your analysis of the cultural influences implies. The idea is good; the sensitivity to evidence is less apparent.

IOW, superficial similarities do not a relationship make. It was a lesson I have never forgotten.

Now I see Toto employing the same flawed methodology for which I was so vigorously criticised by my history lecturer. If he attempted to employ it in a university level essay (as I had done), he would be laughed out of class. Are you surprised, then, to find me attacking it? Why should I give credence to a methodology which is demonstrably flawed? Certainly, Toto would not get far at university if he tried to employ it there.

Having said all of this, I shall try to moderate my remarks in future.

I am not trying to argue that borrowing does not occur and that it could not have occurred - only that it did not occur in this case. I simply have not seen any legitimate argument which might link the PN to any extra-Biblical source. All I have seen so far is a series of wanton equivocations on the basis of very little evidence.

Mere "similarities" from alternative sources do not cut the mustard, Vork.

Well quite apart from the plethora of atheist hypotheses available (itself a blow against the credibility of such an argument), I have not seen anything which might even constitute a solid case, so there is virtually nothing to refute anyway.

Then we have the ever-shifting nature of the original claim. From whom did the Christians borrow, anyway? The Mithraites? Philo? Jewish apocrypha? Some alternative source, perhaps? Which of the many theories do you support, if any? And if it's such a clear-cut case, why do so many theories exist in the first place?

If there was solid, tangible evidence to prove that the Gospel authors merely pilfered the details of the PN from alternative sources, we would expect to see some clear historical evidence for such a claim and we would expect to have a comprehensive argument to support it by now. But we have no such thing. All we have is a wide variety of increasingly bizarre hypotheticals, in which the apostles are alleged to have relied upon every possible source under the sun... except a literal series of historical events (which is simply not acceptable to the proponents of the "Jesus myth" hypothesis.) This does not inspire confidence, Vork.

Please also notice that my responses have consisted of much more than a mere "abrupt dismissal."

I have called into question:

• The methodology.
  
• The credibility of the argument itself.
  
• The appropriateness of the source material.
  
• The inability of the argument to meet certain objections (such as "Why would the Christians present a claim which could be so easily disproved?")

I have yet to see these objections met in any serious way.

It is an argument born more of Christian sensitivity than anything else - and the consistent record of Roman misunderstanding (many believed that the Christians practiced cannibalism and incest) would go a long way towards explaining the concerns of the Christians on this point. Nobody wants to have their religion misrepresented, espcially while it is still so young. Regardless of how plausible the hypothesis may have been, there was very good reason to meet it with an effective refutation.

Notice also that it was the Christians themselves who raised this issue - not their pagan detractors. Justin Martyr mentions the similarities and moves quickly to explain them, but he is not doing so in answer to a pagan antagonist (as we might expect if the charge (a) had some merit, and/or (b) was commonly advanced by the pagans themselves.)

So again, I see no cause for concern here.

I see no evidence for this assertion. Again: if the ancients did indeed "know" this, where are all the accounts of non-Christian polemicists proving it? Where are the accounts of non-Christian polemicists disproving the Christian claims for a historical Christ?

Answer: nowhere.

But why not?

I agree that the ON and the OT are closely related. That is, in fact, the whole point.

They are entitled to their opinions, of course. But really, I think they are giving this argument more credit than it actually deserves.

The main problem with the "historicised prophecy" hypothesis is that it falls foul of the "Why make a claim that could be so easily disproved?" objection. If the Christians had merely fabricated a contrived "historical" account on the basis of the OT prophecies, there would have been no end of contemporaries who could have refuted such a claim.

We also have the problem of empirical evidence (where is the proof that this was actually done?) and the problem of conflicting alternative proposals (if it is indeed true, what do we make of the alternative hypotheses, such as the "pagan myth source" and the "Philo source" theories?)

At the end of the day, it's just another option in the pick-and-mix basket of atheist criticisms.

You have not misrepresented my position at all, for which I thankyou.

Celsus

None of your behaviour in this thread leads me to believe that you are approaching this in honest inquiry. I called your bluff, be honest enough to admit you don't know what you're talking about and were trying to bluff your way out despite your question-begging (and laughably dated) sources (from the same person I cited no less!). Then we can continue.

Joel

Toto

Ev:

I started this thread to call attention to Leidner's book and his argument about the Passion Narrative. I did not give a complete development of his arguments - possibly this was a mistake, but I have some limits on my time.

You, however, have felt free to make comletely unwarranted assumptions about his arguments (Leidner says nothing about pagan borrowings, but you ran on for pages and reproduced one of you school essays that was completely off topic), and then just heap abuse on him and anyone who thinks that way, losing any hope of a coherent discussion. We now know this behavior is a belated reaction to the abuse you suffered at the hands of a University lecturer.



And now I have spent my available time replying to various side issues that you have brought in rather than going into what Leidner actually said.

Since the basis of your argument is that the gospels must be historically accurate because *if they weren't somebody would surely have pointed that out and the movement would have collapsed* and it looks like we'll never get to anything else while that is cluttering the thread, let's dispose of that first.

First, we have no indication of the existence of the gospels before the second century. You try to push the burden of proof on the skeptics to show that they are not early, but the burden of proof should be on you to justify the minority belief that they can be dated earlier than 70 CE. (That topic has been argued to death in other threads. It's a diversion here.)

Most modern scholars who want to believe that the gospels were written close to the time of Jesus cannot date the earliest Gospel, Mark, much before 70 CE. There is general agreement among Biblical scholars that Mark was written after the fall of Jerusalem. By this time, the witnesses to whatever happened around 30 CE were dead or scattered. There would be no way to disprove the gospels or anything about Jerusalem.

Secondly, we have no indication that the Gospels were intended to be taken as history, or that the basis of early Christianity was a particular set of facts. Justin Martyr said (Chap XXI):

It would have been irrelevant to try to prove that the sons of Jupiter never walked on earth; and it would have been similarly impossible or irrelevant to try to prove to a first or second c. Christian that the gospels were not accurate history. In fact, historical proof seems to be irrelevant to any religion. The foundational documents of Mormonism are now generally admitted to be fake, but the Mormon church is still here, and growing.

Next I'll have to decide if I am going to deal with your strange views of Judaism or do something more productive.

the_cave

Hey, Toto, could you provide a link to this thread? The $*%! search is turned off again, and I don't know where to look, or how long ago the last post was.

In my opinion, the problem of the historicity of Jesus begins with the beginning of Mark. First thing that happens is, Jesus gets baptized by John.

I've only seen two mythicist explanations of this. The first I believe comes from Price (it might be Doherty, I admit with embarrassment I sometimes get their arguments confused.) I believe he claims that the acts of Jesus were originally acts of the apostles, and some of them got transfered to Jesus once he became historical. He may even state explicitly that the baptism of Jesus is a literary symbol of the origins of the Jesus movement from the John movement.

The other "explanation" is that John is also mythical--in fact I got that argument from here. I find it implausible at best, especially as there would then have to be _another_ interpolation in Josephus. I'm just not that conspiracy-minded, sorry.

Anyway, as I look at these arguments, I'm again reminded of a problem I have with the mythicists--there are so many versions of the mythicist position, and they rely on so many undecided aspects of the early history, that there's no way to distinguish which ones are plausible, and which one's aren't! They're all plausible! Hey, maybe John was a Hellenistic deity, sure! But that's the kind of plausibility that all mythicist arguments rely on--"Hey, see? It all hangs together..." There's no consensus--you could call it a pre-paradigmatic situation. But then, that makes the historicist argument equally plausible, as well. Which means that the only real position to take would be the one Price reluctantly (and quietly) admits at the end of Deconstructing Jesus--in other words, gee, there's really no way of knowing, is there? In other words, historical agnosticism is the only solution, by the mythicist's own admission. Which is not really the same thing as a mythicist position.

The main thing I never get a clear picture on is, what was the motivation of the author of Mark? Was he writing a pious fiction? Was he telling a myth, that he thought would obviously be interpreted as such? Did he believe he was writing down things that actually happened? Was he writing a combination of myth and history? Was he lying? All I get is some hand-waving about "well we can't judge the ancients according to our standards they lived in a mental world different from ours blah blah blah..." So with all our critical powers, we can't explain what was going through the mind of the author of Mark, or how his work was intended to be accepted? Then why should I believe any claims about the meanig of Mark? And if there are competing claims about the mind of the author of Mark, how do i choose between them? The mythicist position is not at all obvious, and if I'm to take it seriously, I need some responses to these concerns.

Vorkosigan

There are several points that need to be made here.

1. Crossan is a Christian. But he sees the PN at every level is an invention out of the OT. Many other Christian scholars see the same.

2. The issue is not "theological baggage." The issue is that the events in the NT PN can be shown to correspond tightly to verses in the OT that were generally not considered messianic prophecies prior to Christianity, and appear to be generated from them. John J. Collins (a Christian) says in his study of Jewish messianism The Scepter and the Star that

• Psalm 22 was especially important in the shaping of the Passion Narratives. The Christian use of these psalms involved a new line of interpretation, however, for which there was no precedent in Judaism.

This leaves us with only a couple of choices. Either (1) the Jew Jesus attempted to live his death in harmony with OT verses that nobody else had ever considered messianic before, or (2)somebody constructed his death from them. The problem with the former is that much of Jesus' death was largely out of his control. For example, the casting of lots is taken from an OT verse, but there is no way Jesus leaned down from the cross and said to the Roman soldiers: "Would you guys mind drawing lots for my clothes? It's a bible thing I have to do. Thanks a bunch." Since the use of the OT runs through events Jesus both could control and could not control, it follows that Jesus could not have lived his life in accordance with some maverick interpretation of the scriptures, so we must reject (1) above. That leaves (2).

3. Saying that an argument is something seen by atheists and agnostics does not refute that argument. You still have to deal with the particulars.

Two points. First, if the story had been invented after 70, and it certainly was, then ease of disproof was not available. I believe the Gospels were all written after 100, so disproof is not an issue.
Second, I don't need to explain the Christian motive for fabricating the gospel legends if I can show they were fabricated. Motive is irrelevant speculation if I can show who did the murder.

By all means, 'vange, show where Toto is ignorant. For it appears to me that you have consistently avoided confronting Toto's arguments, and when you have, you demonstrated that you had misunderstood them. For example, after you made an error of interpretation that Toto showed thusly:

• the person of Jesus in the PN is not derived from Carrabas - the scene of mockery in the gospels is derived from the scene of mockery described in Philo.

You responded with the inane comment that you and Don agree it is laughable. Your opinion is noted, but that is not an argument against Toto's claim.

Be careful. For it looks to me like you are looking in the mirror.

But 'vange, you're the one here attacking a book you've never read. And you're the one here attacking a thesis that is rather widely shared among NT scholars. The consensus view is that, as semantic parallels indicate, at least some of the events in the PN are made up from OT verses. The only question is how much.

'vange, if I had to bet money on Toto's knowledge against yours, I would win with Toto every time.

[quote....]Now I see Toto employing the same flawed methodology for which I was so vigorously criticised by my history lecturer. If he attempted to employ it in a university level essay (as I had done), he would be laughed out of class. Are you surprised, then, to find me attacking it? Why should I give credence to a methodology which is demonstrably flawed? Certainly, Toto would not get far at university if he tried to employ it there.[/quote]

'vange, major scholars, working at universities, have determined that the PN and the OT are intimately related. Toto's methodology is in fact widely used in historical studies all over the world. So I don't understand what you mean. Leidner is now applying the same methodology, commonly used by scholars.

Then, my friend, you need to do some reading. For quite a number of arguments link the PN to extra-biblical sources. See Ted Weeden (a major Mark scholar) arguing here for borrowing from oral traditions about the life of Jesus Ananias

That is your opinion. It seems rather unsupported by good argument.

You seem to be operating under the assumption that the early Christians could not have borrowed from all of these, or some combination. Is there some law somewhere that says a story may have only one source?

At the moment, I am inclined to strongly support the contention of Steve Mason that Luke borrowed from Josephus. It seems that extensive mining of Josephus by Luke best explains many features of Luke/Acts.

I am also inclined to strongly support the idea that the PN is made up out of the OT. But note that Leidner supplies new sources for the PN stories that flesh out some of the details.

I have not read Leidner yet, so have no position on his conclusions. I ordered the book the other day, and it should arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Again, you seem to be operating under the assumption that only one source is possible. There is absolutely nothing incompatible with assumptions that the PN had a number of sources. For example, Jan Sammer has argued -- fascinatingly, IMHO -- that the PN is based on a play, perhaps by Seneca. Now, there is nothing inherently contradictory between mining Philo for details, mining the OT for a framework, borrowing stories from Josephus and elsewhere, and casting them in the form of a play. It's precisely something a creative writer might do. In fact, Acts seems to have had numerous sources, for it cites Thucydides, borrows from Josephus, is apparently aware of the Pauline corpus and the pseudoPaulines, and quotes from a number of pieces of classical literature, as well as the OT, of course. The death of Stephen is apparently a riff on an event in Josephus, with Steven's final speech cribbed from Joshua's. So in fact, we know that it is perfectly possible for Mark to have mined a variety of sources for his PN -- it was SOP for other gospel writers, and Leidner is attempting to find them.

They did and we do. The compelling arguments have been out there for decades. But they are fighting upstream against a powerful current of devices designed to deal with cognitive dissonance. Such as knee-jerk dismissals of any idea that the PN derives from extra-biblical sources.

An unworthy exaggeration. The pool of candidates for parallels is generally narrowly restricted to the greco-roman classics, Josephus, and a couple of other writers. See? When confronted with facts, you simply engage in rhetorical hyperbole.

...and unacceptable to scholars. No serious scholar thinks each and every event in the gospels actually occurred. The difference between the mythicists and the serious scholars is one of degree, not kind.

Most of what you've written has shown that you do not understand what is being said, or you are unwilling to deal with the issues -- as Toto so elegantly showed with the comment

• the person of Jesus in the PN is not derived from Carrabas - the scene of mockery in the gospels is derived from the scene of mockery described in Philo.

-- or given arguments that are non sequitors such as "Why would the Christians present a claim which could be so easily disproved?" Your attacks on Leidner's arguments have shown that you do not understand the way parallels are used to detect literary dependence.

Why would Justin Martyr attempt to refute an argument nobody had brought up?

Where are the accounts of ancient critics arguing that Jesus was a lot like other figures? Of the few that Christians permitted to survive, we have Celsus...*

• "It is clear to me that the writings of the christians are a lie, and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction: I have heard that some of your interpreters...are on to the inconsistencies and, pen in hand, alter the originals writings, three, four and several more times over in order to be able to deny the contradictions in the face of criticism."
  
  "What an absurdity! Clearly the christians have used the myths of Danae and the Melanippe, or of the Auge and the Antiope in fabricating the story of Jesus' virgin birth."
  
  "As for satan being cast down to earth, "Homer writes as follows of the words spoken by Hephaestus to Hera: 'Once when I was ready to defend you, he took my by the foot and cast me down from the heavenly places.' Zeus speaks to Hera as follows, 'Do you remember when you were hanging on high, when I attached anvils to his legs and cast unbroken chains of gold about your arms? You were hanging high in the ether of clouds. Then the gods struck...but I, seizing him, pitched him from the threshold of heaven, and he fell helplessly to earth.'"

Apparently your vast knowledge of "the sources" does not cover....the sources.

*[size=1]Thanks, PS418![/size=3]

This is now the third time that you have raised this non sequitor. Again, let me point out that we do not have to supply motives, just evidence. It is obvious that the PN is at least partly built out of the OT. So you must concede that at least in part the Christians DID in fact make claims that could be easily "disproved." Your claim must now be the much weaker "Well, not all of it is made up...."

But let's imagine it is 140 and you get hold of the Gospel of Mark. How would you go about disproving its claims? The Roman records are long gone. Nobody living was around when Jesus was executed. Jerusalem has been destroyed twice and the Jewish population scattered to the four winds. Any writer, writing after the turn of the century, could have said absolutely anything he wanted and there would be no way to disprove it.

Really? What contemporaries in 110, or even 75, the mainstream dating of Mark, could have refuted that? How? With no records and no access to witnesses....? And let's assume that you could find someone who claimed to be an eyewitness of the event. How would you know that her claims were true? Even if she wasn't lying, how would you know -- forty years later -- that she had witnessed the execution in question and not confused it with some other?

Further, we know that Christians did argue that Jesus was not crucified in the real world, for such Christians are warned against in the Bible.

In the literary parallels. Literary parallels are generally used to show dependence across all genres of writing. For example, close parallels between Noah and the Babylonian flood tales are said to show the dependence of the former on the latter. Parallels between Homer and Virgil show the latter's dependence on the former. Literary parallels between the King James Version and the Book of Mormon...well, I don't want to repeat myself. If you scroll down a bit here, you'll find a list of 15-18th century English folk plays and stories that are derived from contemporaneous literary works, a common occurrence, and one that ought to give believers in oral tranmission pause.

In short, in all other fields, parallels are generally believed to show some form of dependence. Unless we are discussing the NT, in which case those methodologies face unaccountable uphill struggles.

At the end of the day, it's just another Christian firing from behind hastily-erected defenses against cognitive dissonance.

Can you show some explicit conflicts? I see few, if any.

Vorkosigan

Toto

Jesus Variants

I don't think that anyone here has seriously proposed that John the Baptist is mythical. I wrote a post as a theoretical exercise, but I am not arguing for it.

I think agnosticism is the only scientific position. But sometimes it's fun to speculate.

I think that Mark is pretty obviously a mythic tale. This doesn't mean that there is no history behind it, but it makes finding the history difficult You can read Dennis MacDonald's The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark for some hints about what might have been in aMark's mind. Keep in mind that MacDonald is a Christian and not a mythicist; but if what he says holds up, Mark was a literary production from start to finish.

Vorkosigan

Hmmm.....perhaps the writer hoped to blunt the John movement -- which was a problem, as the Gospel of John shows, and Acts 19 as well -- by showing that John had annointed Jesus his successor. Perhaps the author borrowed a historical figure. The explanation that John is also mythical is not exactly the only other alternative. There are a number of reasons why Jesus might be linked to John, and none need be historical. Nor conspiratorial. A confluence of interests is not a conspiracy.

Anyway, as I am sure you are aware, the Slavonic version of Josephus has John appearing at a much earler time, and does not link him to Jesus. Neither does our current one (which I consider to be at least tampered with). So the historical position and existence of John is problematical, to say the least. I am sure you are aware of Campbell's observation that John resembles mythical deities......

Really? I don't feel that way.

That's probably why hardly anyone here is a mythicist. Both Toto and I follow Price in being Jesus agnostics.

What was the motivation of the author of the Book of Mormon?

Are these mutually exclusive motives?

Funny, 'cuz that's what the historicists say.

The question of motivation is really irrelevent. If you can show that Mark's PN was created out of OT sources and cannot be historical, then we need not worry about why he wrote -- we can speculate about that over beer and buffalo wings. We need only note that it is demonstrably fiction and move on.

Vorkosigan