Daniel_AnglumTM

'allo

I have a couple of questions becauuse iam unsure of what evidence we are actually missing when it comes to Jesus so i have a couple of questions that the moderately learned of you can hopefully shed some light on.

1.If someone like the Jesus of the NT existed what evidence would we expect to find for him? (i.e the Godman who caused eclipses etc)

2. What evidence would we expect to find for the more liberal Christian and agnositc view point (i.e No sudden eclipses and strange accidents with Pigs being driven off cliffs but miracles or apparent miracles none the less)

3. What evidence would we expect to find for the local preacher who may or may not have been crucified by Pilate?

thanks
Daniel Anglum

[ December 01, 2002: Message edited by: Daniel_AnglumTM ]</p>

Family Man

The simple answer to your question is some independent accounts that mention some of the public events described in the gospel accounts. For instance, if an eclipse had occurred with earthquakes and the dead rising out of the grave, we'd have strong evidence that the account was true. On a more mundane level, if another writer had mentioned that Herod massacred infants under 2 in the region mentioned in the bible, we'd have strong evidence that happened.

But in reality, the evidence we have is very poor and hardly worth the time it takes to listen to a sermon every Sunday morning.

Daniel_AnglumTM

thanks but would we actually expect to find evidence for someone who broadly fitted the description true or not in Josephus? because iam trying to decide if the lack of evidence for Jesus and the mythological parallels leads automaticly to non-existance

Sojourner553

Daniel--

You are missing the obvious.

If the gospel stories were true, every creature (possible animals too) would be born "knowing" God and exactly what was required of them. (Then the "test" would be whether they followed this agreed doctrine.)


Instead we see,

* No agreement on what God "Wills". Instead there are wars and bitter hatred, even over minor disagreements. People tend to agree only when they have been similarly INDOCTRINATED as children.

Take as one example: During the Protestant Catholic Wars, both sides engaged in slaughter and tortures -- each convinced the other side was aligned with the Devil. Wouldn't a true miracle tell them their "voices" from God were really made up in their own minds?


* No lightening bolts shoot down individuals who use religion for their own hypocritical and evil purposes.


And: Why don't the animals worship God??, if He seems to be so very jealous and anxious to be worshipped (again assuming a God with the characteristics of the OT).

Instead we are told God cares more about what we believe, not how we act.

Smell a rat? Read history, and we see it is the priests/rulers who tell us they are the special speakers for God/ (We are not supposed to notice the miracles are done behind a curtain, or there is a human hand secretly moving the puppet strings, and writing the holy scripts.)

Sojourner


<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

[ December 06, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

Vorkosigan

No, it doesn't. Non-existence is a difficult position to defend from the evidence we have. The issue is more like "what relationship do the stories we currently have bear to the figure(s) that lie underneath them?" How good is the correspondence? What methods can we use to detect history in the fictions and myths of the numerous gospels and related writings? I would argue that there are no solid facts in the gospels, and that the "Jesus of History," whoever he was, has been lost.

Vorkosigan

doodad

I agree with you on your last statement. However, there are a few scraps of history that allude to the existence of Jesus Christ. It seems that one was the journal of a Roman who was associated with, perhaps a part of, the Roman rule of ancient Israel at the time he supposedly existed.

I think believers feed upon the memory of Jesus as portrayed in the NT. It's strange to hear people speak of our brother Jesus or of him as if he is still alive when at the same time they say he is supernatural. I believe many of the principles of behavior he advocated have merit, but I do have trouble believing the miracles he supposedly performed. This to me was a side show in that it was an effort to create and support the idea that he was a divine person with supernatural powers. The very idea that someone can forgive your sins (but in fact not erase them)
has a basis in secular life, but to spare you from eternal damnation really stretches it. That's great, but it's a bit irresponsible. What's the victim get from your being forgiven of your misbehavior?

doodad

I wonder how important the existence of Jesus really is to the Christian belief system. General Eisenhower, and later president of the US, and former President Reagan both held ideas that are still held to have merit today. Do we employ their principles or their memory? It's the same with Jesus and his principles. He's gone, but his ideas live on. The concepts of Heaven and Hell are quite conjectural, but the principles of motivation and behavior he advocated are still employed today so they must have merit.

It appears you are trying to do with Jesus what others try to do with God, cast doubt on his existence. It doesn't matter all that much to a believer because it's his beliefs that influence him not the existence of Jesus or God. If religious beliefs are indeed built upon false assumptions I cannot see that proving the non-existence of Jesus would really stop people from believing. People will believe what they want to believe, and the factual basis of what they believe doesn't seem to matter all that much.

In real terms where does the problem lie? Is it with what people believe or is it with the people who believe in such concepts? Folks have emotional needs, and practicing religion is one way of serving some of their needs, so is it really a culprit. Psychologists can tell you that there's not always a logical solution to an emotional problem and that sometimes an irrational measure, a band aid so to speak, is the we can hope for. I think that religion serves as that band aid for many who have intractable fears about such matters as facing death, debilitating injury and the like. If there's no rational explanation of their fears then what's left. A little salve for the soul.
A form of displacement or rationalization. It's ridiculous, but it seems to be beneficialin the absence of something better.

[ December 07, 2002: Message edited by: doodad ]</p>

Family Man

The answer is still the same. You'd look for independent accounts that verify the more mundane aspects of the story. The problem is, there isn't any.

And therein lies the rub. The layers of mythology that was laid onto Jesus the person makes it extremely difficult to make confident statements about that person. If you read proponents of the Historical Jesus, what they have to say is so cautious that it amounts to saying virtually nothing at all.

I'm not as pessimistic as Vork, but not by much. No, the mythology doesn't lead automatically to non-existence; it leads, however, to the conclusion that the Jesus of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus were two different people.

Vorkosigan

I've become even more pessimistic since finishing Theissen and Merz's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800631226/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide</a>. A magnificent book and an extremely useful comprehensive guide to everything from the Roman world to the eschatological ideas of Jesus and Joh the Baptist. However, the book is singularly unable to provide any kind of serious methodology for sorting out the factual from the non-factual. Further, because it is a comprehensive guide, it shows very clearly that historical conclusions in HJ studies are driven largely by the delicate balance between how far NT scholars can go, and how much religion can accept, and a semi-conscious attempt to preserve the crucifixion details at all costs -- the so-called "core story." It also uses the "declarative method" of historical research so common in HJ studies, simply stating that things are true without showing it, and adding a modifier like 'certainly' to increase the strength of the statement. Weirdly, they accept Mara Bar Serapion as a reference to Jesus, although it clearly does not seem to be.

One good thing about the book is that it tackles the mythicist case, something that all other intro and guides ignore. Finally! The exchange of ideas between the two sides is extremely illuminating. T & M indulge in circular logic, weak arguments, and even strawmen to attempt to subvert the mythicist case. For example, T&M conclude about what they concede is the vast silence in the early Christian writings:

• "One cannot conclude from the silence of the Johannine letters about the Johannine Jesus that there were no Jesus traditions in the Johannine community -- any more than one can draw similar conclusions from the 'silence' of the Pauline letters."

But the mythicist argument isn't that there were no 'Jesus traditions' in these communities, but rather that these traditions do not reflect historical reality, or are flat-out inventions.

Another example is the discussion of the OT on page 107, showing the flexibility of interpretive frameworks. In the face of skeptics pointing out that the whole of the passion narrative is drawn from OT sources (constructed out of it, in fact), T & M argue that the presence of the OT quotes are there to 'tone down' the effects of a historical event, and give a list of 4. Accordingly, Isa 53:12 is quoted in Luke 22:37 to make it less offensive that Jesus was crucified with common thieves. Yet 70 pages before, on p. 39, T & M state that a passage is most likely historical because it is free of OT quotes! There is simply no way to know whether the 'flight of the disciples' was historical or not until we get a less biased source. Historically, every single event in the Gospels is up for grabs. That was Price's point, and no one has effectively replied to it.

Similarly, on p. 101 T & M argue that the incidents with the man who drew his sword and the young man who fled naked, during the arrest, are historical. The argument for this is that the names were left out to protect the people involved (and next on FOX Network....), based on the observation that people are usually named in the passion narrative. But a glance at Mark shows how untrue that is. Just read Mark 14 and 15, and see how many people go unnamed -- the servant girl and the man who talk to Peter in the denial scene, the Centurion who proclaims him the Son of God, only three of the group of woman who watch his death, the chief priests and elders and teachers.....the creator of 'Mark' actually was sometimes in the habit of naming people, and sometimes not.

Weak arguments continue....according to T & M, the skeptics argue that the Jesus tradition speaks kerygmatically to the present and is not interested in the past. The first half of that is a correct characterization, the second appears to be a strawman, as far as I can tell (Iason? Earl?). The counter-arguments for this are unusually pathetic, and, as if in recognition, they are listed in the work in descending order of rationality:

• Jesus traditions are explicitly called 'memory.' They then cite Papias and Justin (two second century sources) and Acts 11!! "However," they tendentiously argue, " it does demonstrate an interest in keeping the story of Jesus in mind." Hey, no shit. But the issue is whether the story kept in mind is historical, or largely (I would almost completely) theological invention. Second-century sources won't cut it here...
• T & M then argue that "Jesus and his disciples are depicted in such a way that readers can enter into their role." And that this offer of identification and "distancing signals" are signs of historicizing elements. I quite agree. But the issue is whether such historicizing elements are creations or compilations. Simply recognizing them as historicizing elements does nothing to confirm them as historical data. Fiction has lots of historicizing elements, but that does not make it real.
• And finally, the old chestnut, T&M argue that since Pilate, JBap and Herod Antipas are real, and Jesus is interweaved with them....

There's more in this vein....and I'm going to write something up, especially since I still owe Tyler on XTALK a response.

Vorkosigan