Toto

We all agree it is a traditional rabbinic formula. Doherty identifies it as a traditional formula. Price identifies it as a traditional formula. Are you claiming that Paul is not capable of using it in another sense, perhaps as metaphor, or of putting his own meaning on the words? That's Paul who spoke as a Jew to the Jews, and as a gentile to the gentiles.

Don't assume that because I do not agree with your analysis that I can't keep up. Unless of course you are talking in a private code to yourself.

Toto

Carrier discusses and refutes Pearson in his essay <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html#Herod" target="_blank">here.</a> If you are going to cite Pearson as authority, you should at least read what Carrier says and reply to it.

Vorkosigan

I do think that the nhilistic approach many of you guys take would end our historical knowledge if applied to other figures.

What particular aspects of this approach do you believe would end our historical knowledge if applied to other figures? Can you identify any?

Bede

Joedad,

Apologies but I have frequently had my credibility questioned simply due to my religion – most recently Toto’s insulting change to my bye line on this very thread (it was funny the first time but he just keeps at it) – makes it very tempting to hit the polemic button. I will try to avoid doing so when addressing you.

I am unsure what you mean by GJ, but will assume we are still discussing the historical Jesus.

Agreed. But here I think you make a mistake. The Christian corpus is evidence (and very good evidence) of what early Christians believed and we historians must ask why they believed it. Their beliefs were pretty weird (although religious weirdness is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder) and not what we might expect if it was made up from the whole cloth. Why does Mark open a theological can of worms for himself by having the sinless Jesus baptised? Why is Jesus a member of an unpopular oppressed minority whose land has just been laid waste after a failed revolt? Why is he crucified by a senior representative of the people to whom his followers are now preaching? You can see how Luke and John try to distance Pilate from the deed, clearly they did not like this and tried to soften its impact. And why Jesus? What did this man do and say to have followers after his death that Paul felt the need to persecute?

The historian reads the early Christian writings against themselves and tries to pick out what the authors’ seem to have considered embarrassing. Paul even admits the crucifixion is a serious problem for his apologetics.

The solution to most of the questions above is that these were the traditions that the writers inherited and they were stuck with them. And the most likely origin of the tradition is things that happened to a man. This solution is parsimonious, requires no special pleading and is fully consistent with other evidence we have for the time (I hope you are aware that the argument about the silence of contemporary high status writing about Jesus is not valid).

The historian has other methods at his disposal which point in the same direction. Multiple attestation, for example. At the back of his book The Historical Jesus, Crossan breaks down all the extant Jesus traditions and finds many have independent attestation across the earliest strata.. As he is very liberal, wrongly (IMHO) dating Acts ridiculously late and unjustifiably insisting John’s Gospel depends on the synoptic Gospels, his stratification is actually the worst case scenario for the historian, but still he has plenty of facts.

So I am afraid that it is simply wrong to discount the Christian corpus when studying the HJ. It is theological, biased and inconsistent but it is also priceless historical evidence when used properly.

True, which is why I feel I am justified in asking why HJ is so frightening that many want to wish him away. I also think I am justified in comparing the way the evidence is denied and misinterpreted by Jesus mythers with the way creationists do the same thing.

Here I fear you make the same mistake again. You cannot throw out a document just by declaring it liturgical (which the synoptics are not) or theological (which they are). This is not historical method – it is simplistic polemic. Presently, I am a history graduate student (straight forward secular history, not NT studies or anything) and that kind of attitude would not be unacceptable. The evidence cannot be dismissed and the questions as to why early Christians were worshipping a crucified Jewish peasant if he never existed, cannot be brushed aside or explained away.

My essay <a href="http://www.bede.org.uk/methodologies.htm" target="_blank">here</a> which explains methods and theories as used in HJ studies was for my history masters course and awarded a distinction by two professors who have never demonstrated any theological interest at all. I am doing history at a major university and have been taught to do it properly – many of the denizens of this board and elsewhere are not doing history but inventing new myths.

No joedad, I’m afraid our main difference is I am doing history and you, by dismissing the sources with a wave of your hand, are not.

Yours

Bede

<a href="http://www.bede.org.uk" target="_blank">Bede’s Library – faith and reason</a>

Layman

That's funny Toto.

I was going to suggest that you should actually read Matthew before talking about his census, or read Galatians before claiming Peter and Paul first met there.

If I want to turn this census thing into a full blown thread, I will. But I was unaware of an Infidels.org rule that said you could not rely on any authority already talked about by the Supreme Overlords of the Secular Web.

Layman

It's a traditional rabbinic method of passing along the teachings and traditions of humans. If you have any examples of it being used to pass along direct revelations from God, please provide them.

Additionally, as I've said more than once now, Paul elsewhere talks about direct revelations from God and does not use this language.

Also, considering the content of the tradition, it's absurd to claim that it is a direct revelation. This is not God revealing Himself or His son or some spiritual truth. We are talking about historical occurrences alleged to have occurred to real historical persons that Paul knew -- Peter, James, and John. Since by the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he had met with Peter at least three times -- even living in his house -- and had met with James at least twice -- "laying his gospel before" James' feet for his approval -- and met John at least once, it is extremely unlikely that Paul is talking about a direct revelation from God here and ignoring everything those people actually involved in the tradition told him about it.

You missed it again Toto. I did not assume you could not keep up because you did not agree with me, the fact is you completely misunderstood my earlier points about Paul's knowledge of early Christianity and still have not addressed them. Instead you keep drawing the thread out by completely misjudging what I said. It gets to the point where it's not worth it to go back through the 6 threads in this threat hunting for your latest bobble.

Toto

Hi Bede - I thought that editing your tag line was just gentle ribbing, but if you find it insulting, I will stop. I just balk at repeating your advertising slogan.

You say

Can you prove that the most likely origin of traditions is that something actually happened? This is the problem.

For example, the Baptism of Jesus. Was it something embarrassing that actually happened, or was it part of an earlier myth that ties Jesus to an existing following of JtB and elevates Jesus above him? How can you decide? The tradition is not very early, since Paul never mentions it, and Mark, who originates the story, does not appear to be embarrassed by it.

And what do you mean by the "argument about the silence of contemporary high status writing about Jesus"?

I repeat that atheists have nothing to fear from a historical Jesus, especially the wimpy Jesus that you think you can show by historical methods. So please leave the motivation out of it.

joedad

Bede,

A sincere congratulations on the popularity of your work with your professors.

Though not as eloquent as you, I managed to do the same in some of my Creative Writing classes, though my skills have waned for lack of use in the intervening thirty years. Flushed with the satisfaction of notice and accomplishment, since then I have concluded that it is probably standard fare to encourage grads and undergrads with such accolades, simply to encourage continued interest and zeal. It works! I even had one Prof tell me that in a thirty-year career, mine was the best undergraduate writing he had ever seen, and I retain the documents to prove same!

To your essay - briefly:

This "Third Quest" is only the most recent. After an initial reading of your essay, I at last came upon those words in your concluding remarks. I can honestly say that historically speaking, we think alike on the HJ question. In light of all that has been said on the question of a possible Gospel Jesus, to include evidence presented to defend said person's very existence, we ought to feel compelled by now to amend that final liturgical quotation to say, "Do you think I am?"

And lets face it, Bede, we're all amateurs. Though it takes intelligence and interest, one needn't be an expert on Alexandrian history to render a verdict on the historical reality of Alexander. And the same holds true for a Gospel Jesus.

My overwhelming reaction to your essay was to liken today's quest for a historical Jesus to those of Nicea, Chalcedon, Trent and others. Only the participants have changed. This two-thousand year long court, and longer, is still in session. Such is the very nature of the religious experience. That today's "scholars" would fare similarly in their collective quest to once again render a verdict on the issue proper and/or its ramifications, theological and not, comes as no surprise.

And it is neither unfair nor inaccurate to state that today's experts attempt to do so with far less documentary information on their historical "founder" than did those expert juries of centuries earlier.

That the earliest assemblages of Jesus experts could not render a coherent verdict, and that twenty centuries later this same jury is still out, weighs-in heavily against the quality of evidence presented throughout all those intervening centuries, against the object of same, and heavily in favor of simply restating the formula for the mythical, religious experience within history.

Though 'absence of evidence is certainly not evidence of absence,' we can today conclude, as others have done many times over, and without a large measure of intimidation, that there is indeed a historical absence of conclusive evidence for an HJ, and probably ought to leave it at that, hoping that perhaps more artifacts are discovered.

joe

Toto

Silly. You just can't cite someone as an authority who has been so thoroughly refuted.

Layman

And did you even bother to read Pearson before determining that he has been "so thorougly refuted"? Or perhaps you could point me to the peer-reviewed publication that published Carrier's "thorough[]" refutation?

And did you (Mr. Matthew's Census and Mr. First Met in Galatia) realize what a tremendously fragile glass house you live in?