A Question about the historicity of Jesus

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Perhaps if one could answer the question - assuming that it was the earlier Nazorean "Jesus" who was the person on whom all the later stories were hung - "What did the Christians of that time gain placing 'Jesus' a century later?".

Was this when Paul created his "Christianity" out of the pre-existing Jewish-Christian sect - hence why he never mentions a physical Jesus Christ, since that one died a century earlier? Are these the "Christians" whom he was persecuting prior to his conversion?

I've just had an idea:

:!: Did Paul create his version - Christianity - as a means of destroying these same "Christians"?? :!:

In other words, his preaching was a counter-intelligence mission!? There was no "conversion on the road to Damascus" - it was just a story to give him credence.

If the contemporaneous leader of this sect - of whom Peter, James, et al, were followers - happened to be named "Jesus" (or Yeshua, etc), perhaps Paul's version of events (and later writers) was an attempt to "retcon" the two, hijacking the earlier oral tradition??!

Paul took his stories of "Jesus" to places and people who were unfamiliar with Jewish history/customs/oral traditions - who amongst them could have countered his tales? The NT includes letters which he wrote to various people after he'd left (Galatians and Corinthians) - or been chased out of - complaining that they'd listened to other versions of the events surrounding "Jesus" (by the members/apostles of the Jewish-Christian sect - the real "Christians").

I realise I'm speculating wildly...

My main reason is that, I think it easier to hang a story - with embellishments - on a real person, rather than make it all up. A similar example, as I've mentioned before/elsewhere, is the legend of Robin Hood: it's possible that a real person was the basis for the core stories in Nottinghamshire, with later additions throughout England as a "Robin was here!" development.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Laurens]

Greetings,

Perhaps if one could answer the question - assuming that it was the earlier Nazorean "Jesus" who was the person on whom all the later stories were hung - "What did the Christians of that time gain placing 'Jesus' a century later?".

Was this when Paul created his "Christianity" out of the pre-existing Jewish-Christian sect - hence why he never mentions a physical Jesus Christ, since that one died a century earlier? Are these the "Christians" whom he was persecuting prior to his conversion?

I've just had an idea:

:!: Did Paul create his version - Christianity - as a means of destroying these same "Christians"?? :!:

In other words, his preaching was a counter-intelligence mission!? There was no "conversion on the road to Damascus" - it was just a story to give him credence.

If the contemporaneous leader of this sect - of whom Peter, James, et al, were followers - happened to be named "Jesus" (or Yeshua, etc), perhaps Paul's version of events (and later writers) was an attempt to "retcon" the two, hijacking the earlier oral tradition??!

Paul took his stories of "Jesus" to places and people who were unfamiliar with Jewish history/customs/oral traditions - who amongst them could have countered his tales? The NT includes letters which he wrote to various people after he'd left (Galatians and Corinthians) - or been chased out of - complaining that they'd listened to other versions of the events surrounding "Jesus" (by the members/apostles of the Jewish-Christian sect - the real "Christians").

I realise I'm speculating wildly...

My main reason is that, I think it easier to hang a story - with embellishments - on a real person, rather than make it all up. A similar example, as I've mentioned before/elsewhere, is the legend of Robin Hood: it's possible that a real person was the basis for the core stories in Nottinghamshire, with later additions throughout England as a "Robin was here!" development.

Kindest regards,

James

The difference between Robin Hood and Jesus is that our earliest sources do not pre-suppose a historical figure. The Epistles as I have mentioned do not resemble anything written by people who were worshipping a historical figure.

I did not receive it [the Gospel] from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Galatians 1:12

Considering that Messianic exegesis pretty was pretty much able to derive a dying and rising, suffering Messiah called Jesus (see my earlier response to he_who_is_nobody), and text's such as the Ascension of Isaiah appear to place this as a celestial event occurring in the firmament. Which would tie in with Paul's never placing it on Earth, or referring to an empty tomb, or happening under Pilate, or anything of the sort. Nor does Paul refer to Jesus as returning once more. His language suggests that his coming hasn't happened yet at all.

The first mention of a historical Jesus is in the Gospels which are not historical documents. For a good reason as to why we should reject them as being worth anything historically look at Stephen Law's article here.

Going from what looks like a celestial exegesised entity to a historical person that we find in the Gospels is the reverse order of what we'd expect to see in a legend. Legends go from history to myth, whereas this goes from myth to history.

The initial problems that I see with your hypothesis are as follows. If Paul is preaching to people who knew nothing about Jesus, why would he still neglect to mention his historical version of Jesus to them? If the Gospel narratives originated with him, why are his epistles lacking of even a hint of it? When he counters what the people heard from James and Peter, why would he not counter the historical claims? You cannot really build a picture out of nothing, other than there being two distinct traditions about when Jesus died.

 

[thenexttodie]

That's a bit off topic for this thread.

What do you think is the best evidence for the historicity of Jesus?

The best evidence would have to do with something not directly related to proving the historicity of Jesus.

That there is no evidence for the historicity of the supposed conspirators who invented a falsehood of a "Jesus who never was", is therefore the best evidence of the historicity of Jesus That is why Carrier like arguments don't work. Who were these people? What were their names? What documents do we have attesting to their existence?[/quote]

I see what you are getting at. I don't think anybody advocates that it was a group of people who sat down and decided 'lets make up a guy and worship him as a God'.

The basic concept is that due to the Roman occupation of Judea and the corruption of the temple elites, a certain sub set of Messianic Jews began to solve the problem by looking to scripture for a Messiah who would absolve their sins, without them continually having to rely on the corrupt temple cult.

In Isaiah 53, Daniel 9, and Zechariah 6, they found a depiction of a Messianic figure who would suffer and die as an atonement for the sins of Israel and would rise again, whom they called Yeshua (from Zechariah). They began to view this celestial being as a means for God to dwell directly with the faithful who accepted this death and resurrection thus negating any reliance on the temple.
..
Eventually, probably to derive some extra authority some sects of Christians began to historicise Jesus, so that they could say "well our guys trace back to the actual historical person" and thus the historical Jesus was born.

This is obviously a very brief over view of the hypothesis, but hopefully its clear that it was supposed as a long and gradual evolution, rather than a cabal of people sitting down to invent someone from scratch.

Right. No, it's not clear.

Figures like Paul reference this celestial entity as appearing to him in revelation and through scripture. He never refers to Jesus unambiguously as a historical person.

I can't think of any reason why this would be especially important, even if it were true.

Laurens, you can easily read everything we have that Paul wrote in 4 or 5 days, before you go to sleep at night. If you have already done this, I suggest you do it again. Anyway read what Paul wrote and you will learn that

Jesus was a man

Jesus was equal with God.

Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate

Jesus was crucified

Jesus's lineage is traced back to David.

Paul sometimes argued with the people who lived with Jesus.

 

[Laurens]

Right. No, it's not clear.

It really is, watch a lecture from Richard Carrier and you will see that I gave a brief summary of his arguments. He doesn't suppose a cabal of people inventing someone. Note I did not say it was clear this is true (although I am increasingly convinced that it is) I said it is clear that this is the mythicist position is one of slow and gradual evolution. You should know this if you had even done the slightest bit of research.

I can't think of any reason why this would be especially important, even if it were true.

Laurens, you can easily read everything we have that Paul wrote in 4 or 5 days, before you go to sleep at night. If you have already done this, I suggest you do it again. Anyway read what Paul wrote and you will learn that

Jesus was a man

Jesus was equal with God.

Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate

Jesus was crucified

Jesus's lineage is traced back to David.

Paul sometimes argued with the people who lived with Jesus.

We know that there are seven authentic Pauline Epistles:

First Thessalonians (ca. 50 AD)
Galatians (ca. 53 AD)
First Corinthians (ca. 53–54 AD)
Philippians (ca. 55 AD)
Philemon (ca. 55 AD)
Second Corinthians (ca. 55–56 AD)
Romans (ca. 57 AD)

This is what the majority of scholars agree on, not just mythicists.

Can you tell me where in those seven it is said that Jesus stood before Pilate? Or that he was a man?

Paul says Jesus was crucified but he never mentions Pilate (if he does I'd be curious to know as to where?) he never mentions Jerusalem. In other words, although he doesn't explicitly say, it could have happened in the firmament a la the Ascension of Isaiah. It's not 100% clear this is what he thought, but it is clear that he doesn't explicitly place the crucifixion in a specific location on earth.

As I mentioned previously Paul says that Jesus was made of the sperm of David using the same word he uses for Adam being made by God, not the word he uses for born. So he could easily have been referred to a Davidic body that Jesus took on when he descended to the firmament and was crucified by Satan and the demons as in the Ascension of Isaiah. At best this is unclear, why use the word he uses for made rather than just the regular word he uses for born?

Paul doesn't refer to the people he argues with as disciples. He clearly says that Jesus revealed himself to Cephas, then the twelve, then the 500 and then to me (1 Cor 15:5-6). He didn't say Jesus spoke to Cephas, or that he knew him in person, just that he revealed himself to him, presumably in a vision. Nowhere does he unambiguously say that these people knew the man Jesus.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

My main reason is that, I think it easier to hang a story - with embellishments - on a real person, rather than make it all up. A similar example, as I've mentioned before/elsewhere, is the legend of Robin Hood: it's possible that a real person was the basis for the core stories in Nottinghamshire, with later additions throughout England as a "Robin was here!" development.

While still being an agnostic historicist, I say that this is a bad argument. Honestly, I think we humans are good at creating stories completely out of fiction or basing an ounce of them on reality. You keep bringing up Robin Hood as being a historical figure that was later made into a legend, but sticking to England, we also have King Arthur who is fictional. Both stories have become more fantastic as time went on, but one is based on a real person and the other is made up. Acting as if it is easier to base a legendary story on a real person or events instead of a complete fiction is a bad assumption in my opinion.

 

[Dragan Glas]

Greetings,

Having read Law's interesting paper, I concede the point regarding historicity "beyond a doubt".

In fact, the paper might prove useful for SD in his thread discussion with Aron, as it applies to providing proof for ordinary, nevermind extraordinary, claims.

As for my hypothesis regarding Paul's reason for proselytising his version - that it was a "black op" to destroy the Jewish-Christian sect he'd presumably been persecuting from within - I'm still thinking about it.

To answer your questions, Laurens:

The initial problems that I see with your hypothesis are as follows. If Paul is preaching to people who knew nothing about Jesus, why would he still neglect to mention his historical version of Jesus to them? If the Gospel narratives originated with him, why are his epistles lacking of even a hint of it? When he counters what the people heard from James and Peter, why would he not counter the historical claims? You cannot really build a picture out of nothing, other than there being two distinct traditions about when Jesus died.

Firstly, it appears that Paul either didn't know that much, if anything, about the Jewish-Christian sect's leader, if not founder.

Would it actually matter to him what the true details were if he were merely trying to muddy the waters, as it were?

Later writers could have redacted any indications that Paul was solely responsible for anything. And, as Law's article indicates, there are bound to be contradictions in a story - such neither proves nor disproves arguments for or against.

Having said that, perhaps the "wannabe" aspect still holds sway - that he wished to found a cult with himself as leader.

Against this is the fact that, when he was arrested and facing execution, whereas Peter was sanguine about his own pending death, Paul was positively masochistic in his ideas of how he might be killed.

As I said before, he makes for a very strange character.

I'd mentioned earlier about Caligula, as a boy in Tiberius' court, where he lived on tenter-hooks where the then emperor might kill him or not at any moment. Later, on becoming emperor himself, he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown, and was in bed for several days. When he recovered, he was reported to be a different person.

I wonder if Paul suffered some form of breakdown "on the road to Damascus", hence his strange - perhaps guilt-ridden?! - behaviour, trying to make up for things by spreading his own half-baked religious cult?

I really can't make him out.

Kindest regards,

James

 

[Laurens]

Greetings,

Having read Law's interesting paper, I concede the point regarding historicity "beyond a doubt".

In fact, the paper might prove useful for SD in his thread discussion with Aron, as it applies to providing proof for ordinary, nevermind extraordinary, claims.

As for my hypothesis regarding Paul's reason for proselytising his version - that it was a "black op" to destroy the Jewish-Christian sect he'd presumably been persecuting from within - I'm still thinking about it.

To answer your questions, Laurens:

Firstly, it appears that Paul either didn't know that much, if anything, about the Jewish-Christian sect's leader, if not founder.

I agree. The fact is Paul doesn't mention much about Jesus and the founding of the church. This is what we have to work with. We're just speculating as to why that is.

Would it actually matter to him what the true details were if he were merely trying to muddy the waters, as it were?

Not necessarily, but we have no clear basis to believe he was trying to muddy the waters.

Later writers could have redacted any indications that Paul was solely responsible for anything. And, as Law's article indicates, there are bound to be contradictions in a story - such neither proves nor disproves arguments for or against.

Indeed, all we have is what Paul said. What the mythicists do is raise questions about what he doesn't say and why that might be. It could be that Paul just didn't care, or wasn't bothered about Jesus as a person, but this does seem odd for a person who died in recent memory. We will never truly know, but the silences in the Epistles do add credence to the myth hypothesis.

Having said that, perhaps the "wannabe" aspect still holds sway - that he wished to found a cult with himself as leader.

Possibly, but why then would he focus it around a now dead cult leader? Would it not make more sense if this was his aim, to posit Jesus as a false Messiah and claim the title for himself? We know there were plenty of Messiah claimants at the time.

A mythical Jesus would leave him more headway to start his own cult because he could say that he has the true revelations and that all others are deceived. Which is exactly what he appears to say. That he is the sole vessel for Christ on earth, and all others are false. This would have given him his cult leader platform, and does seem to be what he was trying to do.

Against this is the fact that, when he was arrested and facing execution, whereas Peter was sanguine about his own pending death, Paul was positively masochistic in his ideas of how he might be killed.

As I said before, he makes for a very strange character.

I'd mentioned earlier about Caligula, as a boy in Tiberius' court, where he lived on tenter-hooks where the then emperor might kill him or not at any moment. Later, on becoming emperor himself, he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown, and was in bed for several days. When he recovered, he was reported to be a different person.

I wonder if Paul suffered some form of breakdown "on the road to Damascus", hence his strange - perhaps guilt-ridden?! - behaviour, trying to make up for things by spreading his own half-baked religious cult?

I really can't make him out.

Kindest regards,

James

I'm not sure we'll ever know really. As I say, all we really have is what he wrote, and the oddities therein.

You might be correct that he is trying to usurp the lineage of the original Christian cult leader (Jesus), and pose himself as the true leader. But he doesn't really try to tie himself to the person, or even fabricate a claim of a lineage that leads to him. He merely posits a mystical revelation, and he seems to imply that this is how Jesus appears to the others "first he revealed himself to Cephas, and the twelve... and then to me" curiously he doesn't distinguish the nature of Jesus' link with Cephas and the twelve from his, implying that it was of the same nature; revelatory visions.

It would be much easier for him to perform a successful spiritual coup as it were if Jesus was not the centre of a personality cult, but a mystical being whom Christians believed revealed himself in visions and dreams etc. Paul thinks he has a right to undermine Cephas and the other apostles because he views his claims as equal to theirs, the only difference being that theirs pre-date his. That is my opinion anyway.

A very interesting discussion, I know we'll probably never settle this, but it's fun to discuss

 

[thenexttodie]

Right. No, it's not clear.

It really is, watch a lecture from Richard Carrier and you will see that I gave a brief summary of his arguments. He doesn't suppose a cabal of people inventing someone. Note I did not say it was clear this is true (although I am increasingly convinced that it is) I said it is clear that this is the mythicist position is one of slow and gradual evolution. You should know this if you had even done the slightest bit of research..

Well I sorta filed everything that in had on the mythicist position into the "Garbage File" after all the Zeitgheist bullshit.

Laurens, you can easily read everything we have that Paul wrote in 4 or 5 days, before you go to sleep at night. If you have already done this, I suggest you do it again. Anyway read what Paul wrote and you will learn that

Jesus was a man

Jesus was equal with God.

Jesus stood before Pontius Pilate

Jesus was crucified

Jesus's lineage is traced back to David.

Paul sometimes argued with the people who lived with Jesus.

We know that there are seven authentic Pauline Epistles:

First Thessalonians (ca. 50 AD)
Galatians (ca. 53 AD)
First Corinthians (ca. 53–54 AD)
Philippians (ca. 55 AD)
Philemon (ca. 55 AD)
Second Corinthians (ca. 55–56 AD)
Romans (ca. 57 AD)
This is what the majority of scholars agree on, not just mythicists..

The only real reason to assume any of Paul's books(including the ones you excluded) were written by a guy named Paul, is because the author refers to himself as Paul. Indeed, that's the only way we know Paul existed. But I can come up with any story I want to argue that the books you exclude are the ones the Paul wrote and the ones you claim authentic are forgeries. Understand?

 

[Laurens]

Well I sorta filed everything that in had on the mythicist position into the "Garbage File" after all the Zeitgheist bullshit.

It's pretty clear you're not capable of reasonable discussion.

The only real reason to assume any of Paul's books(including the ones you excluded) were written by a guy named Paul, is because the author refers to himself as Paul. Indeed, that's the only way we know Paul existed. But I can come up with any story I want to argue that the books you exclude are the ones the Paul wrote and the ones you claim authentic are forgeries. Understand?

I am simply going with the scholarly consensus. These people have studied the letters and decided with evidence which ones are authentic and which ones aren't. What reasons can you provide for ignoring the consensus on this issue?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, but in all instances in which I've seen you interact with others on this forum you come across as though you are trolling. If you're next response is as insubstantial and irrelevant as this I'm just going to ignore you.

 

[SpecialFrog]

thenexttodie, if you want to talk about historicity again you could have another go at replying to this post.

 

[thenexttodie]

Well I sorta filed everything that I had on the mythicist position into the "Garbage File" after all the Zeitgheist bullshit.

It's pretty clear you're not capable of reasonable discussion.

Anytime spent discussing nonsense is unreasonable.

The only real reason to assume any of Paul's books(including the ones you excluded) were written by a guy named Paul, is because the author refers to himself as Paul. Indeed, that's the only way we know Paul existed. But I can come up with any story I want to argue that the books you exclude are the ones the Paul wrote and the ones you claim authentic are forgeries. Understand?

I am simply going with the scholarly consensus. These people have studied the letters and decided with evidence which ones are authentic and which ones aren't. What reasons can you provide for ignoring the consensus on this issue?
.. you are trolling. If you're next response is as insubstantial and irrelevant as this I'm just going to ignore you.

At the beginning of this thread you asked us to give our best evidence for the historicity of Jesus without referring to scholarly consensus. I think I provided a well thought out point showing why your claim of a scholarly consensus of certain books being written by "the real Paul", is meaningless.

 

[Laurens]

At the beginning of this thread you asked us to give our best evidence for the historicity of Jesus without referring to scholarly consensus. I think I provided a well thought out point showing why your claim of a scholarly consensus of certain books being written by "the real Paul", is meaningless.

That's totally irrelevant, I wanted people to post arguments for Jesus that weren't just the "scholars believe he was real therefore I believe he was" because I wanted the discussion to operate beyond that stifling convention.

Your point was inane to be honest. You're saying the epistles are all genuine because they say they are written by Paul? That's just ridiculous we have forged Epistles that say they are written by Jesus, when they're clearly forgeries.

Despite what you might say scholars can discern of the Epistles in the NT commonalities in the style and so forth that indicate that seven of them are definitely by the same guy, and thus probably authentic, whilst the others contain traits and so on that indicate that they are written by different people.

If we removed all the usernames off this forum, and had people study them we'd be to tell which posts were common to which author. Some might be debatable, but by and large we would be able to discern different styles and phrases, as well as beliefs and ideas that distinguish individuals.

In the same way scholars can work out whether or not all the epistles were written by the same guy.

 

[Laurens]

By the way mods, I didn't realise there was another thread about this topic. Feel free to merge if you want.

Laurens

 

[Bango Skank]

The only real reason to assume any of Paul's books(including the ones you excluded) were written by a guy named Paul, is because the author refers to himself as Paul. Indeed, that's the only way we know Paul existed. But I can come up with any story I want to argue that the books you exclude are the ones the Paul wrote and the ones you claim authentic are forgeries. Understand?

Letters, not books.

There are reasons to say that some of these claimed letters are not written by same person. For example writing styles are different, different theology, anachronism. I mean sure you could make up some ad hocs to neatly explain all these points away....or you could do some research.

I recommend this book (no alternative available in this magnitude, unless you can read german): http://www.amazon.com/Forgery-Counterforgery-Literary-Christian-Polemics/dp/0199928037

 

[thenexttodie]

That there is no evidence for the historicity of the supposed conspirators who invented a falsehood of a "Jesus who never was", is therefore the best evidence of the historicity of Jesus That is why Carrier like arguments don't work. Who were these people? What were their names? What documents do we have attesting to their existence?

Since we do not have the names of the conspirators who sat down and invented Heracles, Gilgamesh, and Achilles does that mean those fictional characters are based on true stories too?

Did someone say any of these were the result of a conspiracy?

 

[SpecialFrog]

That there is no evidence for the historicity of the supposed conspirators who invented a falsehood of a "Jesus who never was", is therefore the best evidence of the historicity of Jesus That is why Carrier like arguments don't work. Who were these people? What were their names? What documents do we have attesting to their existence?

Since we do not have the names of the conspirators who sat down and invented Heracles, Gilgamesh, and Achilles does that mean those fictional characters are based on true stories too?

Did someone say any of these were the result of a conspiracy?

No one claimed there was a conspiracy in either case. That is the point of HWIN's comparison.

Your claim that a conspiracy is required to get people to believe a mythical figure was historical shows again that you don't understand Carrier's argument.

 

[thenexttodie]

]

The only real reason to assume any of Paul's books(including the ones you excluded) were written by a guy named Paul, is because the author refers to himself as Paul. Indeed, that's the only way we know Paul existed. But I can come up with any story I want to argue that the books you exclude are the ones the Paul wrote and the ones you claim authentic are forgeries. Understand?

Letters, not books.

They are commonly called books.

 

[Bango Skank]

Letters, not books.

They are commonly called books.

Epistles or letters in scholarly works usually, but yeah anyway that was a minor point in my post.

 

[Laurens]

thenexttodie's reluctance to bother dealing the the meat of any of the posts, preferring to address pointless things and tangents indicates to me that we have a troll in our midst.

 

[thenexttodie]

At the beginning of this thread you asked us to give our best evidence for the historicity of Jesus without referring to scholarly consensus. I think I provided a well thought out point showing why your claim of a scholarly consensus of certain books being written by "the real Paul", is meaningless.

That's totally irrelevant, I wanted people to post arguments for Jesus that weren't just the "scholars believe he was real therefore I believe he was" because I wanted the discussion to operate beyond that stifling convention.

So I can't use scholarly consensus but you can?

Your point was inane to be honest.

I see.

You're saying the epistles are all genuine because they say they are written by Paul?

I never said anything like that.

That's just ridiculous we have forged Epistles that say they are written by Jesus, when they're clearly forgeries.

Yes, master.

Despite what you might say scholars can discern of the Epistles in the NT commonalities in the style and so forth that indicate that seven of them are definitely by the same guy, and thus probably authentic, whilst the others contain traits and so on that indicate that they are written by different people.

If we removed all the usernames off this forum, and had people study them we'd be to tell which posts were common to which author. Some might be debatable, but by and large we would be able to discern different styles and phrases, as well as beliefs and ideas that distinguish individuals.

In the same way scholars can work out whether or not all the epistles were written by the same guy.

You're right, if all the names were removed from all of the posts in this forum, Scholars would not be able to discern every post made by which individual.