A Question about the historicity of Jesus

[Rhed]

Surely you have a mind and will look at the evidence circumstantially and see where ever that may lead...

From the time between the life of Jesus (AD 1-33) and the Council of Laodicea (AD 350-363) is well over three hundred years. So picture a timeline: Jesus on the left and a timeline to the first establishment of the canon of the Books. If we find writers about the Gospels and the Epistles closer to the right (the council) then skeptics will more than likely be correct that Jesus didn't exist and the New Testament is nothing but a fairy tale.

In actual fact the evidence suggests a gap of around 20 years from the supposed time of Jesus' death (30 - 33 CE) and the earliest Pauline Epistle (50 CE).

Despite what you say Paul is the earliest New Testament writer, Mark---the earliest Gospel is thought to have been written between 66 and 70 CE. So we have another 20 year or so gap between the authorship of Paul's first epistle and the gospel of Mark.

Given that Paul lived so near to the supposed death of Jesus it's strange that he does not recount anything that unambiguously places Jesus' life in recent history. He mentions his death and resurrection, but he never once puts it in Jerusalem at the hands of Pontious Pilate. He never talks about any of the supposed miracles or sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. In the authentic epistles there is a stunning lack of biographical detail about someone that was supposedly a recently dead rabbi.

It is true that Paul appears to possibly mention a brother of Jesus, however this is at best ambiguous. As I mentioned here there are problems with it.

We then get to Mark, who doesn't appear to be writing biographical history, but merely fiction. All of the gospels bear the marks of fiction. We have instances in which the narrative is given from an omniscient perspective. For example in Mark 14:55-65 we are given an account of the chief priests are looking for testimony to use against Jesus in order to put him to death, yet no disciples are present during the events in order to recount them later as witnesses. Again in Mark 15:1-5 we are told of an encounter between Pilate and Jesus. Elsewhere in Mark we are told that Jesus was "moved with pity" (Mark 1:41) how does the narrator know how Jesus felt?

We are also told of Jesus going into the wilderness and being tempted by Satan (Mark 1:12-13, Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). In none of these passages are we told that there was a witness present. So how are we told exactly what was said? You might argue that Jesus told the disciples at a later date, but this is not how it is presented. It is presented as a scene being described by an omniscient narrator.

Then we have the account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-38, Matthew 26:36-40, Luke 22:39-45). We are told that the disciples are asleep when Jesus is praying, yet we are also told exactly what he said, when there were no witnesses present, or rather all the potential witnesses were asleep. Jesus has no possibility of being able to recount to the disciples what he said during his prayer because his is then seized by the authorities and subsequently executed.

You have to ask why a person writing history would add so much blatantly fictitious stuff.

We also have examples of events which are too symbolically pertinent to be actual history. Take the example of Barabbas (a name meaning son of the father), we are told that on special occasions the Roman authorities allowed people to choose a criminal to set loose (something that would never have happened under the ruthless Pilate). When Barabbas is released it is symbolic. Emulating the ceremony of Yom Kippur with two 'sons of the father' instead of sacrificial lambs. This adds a lot of symbolism of atonement and sacrifice to the crucifixion narrative. I think it's pretty clear that this is an allegorical and fictive account of the crucifixion.

There are many, many examples of elements in each gospel that are too convenient in structure to be actual historical events. Patterns and motifs can be seen in the structure of events---parallels drawn with Old Testament figures. I can only suggest reading Richard Carrier's book to get the full picture.

It is my contention that the gospels contain zero useful historical information. All of the fictive elements mean that we cannot devise a reasonable criteria by which to discern which content, if any, depicts actual historic events. In this article by Stephen Law he highlights a principle of contamination, by which the reliability of an account is diminished to the point of being useless due to the presence of such obvious fiction.

When you look closely at this chain of yours it would seem that it is pretty broken right from the get go. Paul says very little that can be regarded as biographical information and the Gospels are so wildly fictional that they cannot be trusted as historical sources for anything.

To answer your questions about events that apostles weren't there to witness them can be easily answered with Jesus was on earth for 40 days after the resurrection teaching his disciples.

And you keep referring the testimonies and the Gospels as "fiction" because of 20 year gaps based on late dates by scholars who don't believe in Jesus or His miracles, or the Gospels. It's much more reasonable that the synoptic Gospels came before Paul's epistles. Paul quotes from Luke's written account (1 Cor. 11:23-25). Luke's written account readily admitted that he wasn't an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus. He collected statements from the eyewitnesses as described in Luke 1:1-4. And Luke quoted 350 verses from Mark and 250 verses from Matthew.

There is simply no time to make fictitious stories. There is no proof of this whatsoever.

 

[Rhed]

That does not really answer the question now does it? Do you have citations to show that the names attached to the Gospels were written by their namesakes or do you just believe that because of biblical tradition?

Well why wouldn't the tradition be from the Gospel according to Peter, or the Gospel of Jesus, or other close apostles? Why Luke or Mark who were not eyewitnesses of Jesus's ministry? The biblical tradition matches the historical account of 1st century scribes. Why question it?

In addition, it seems like you are claiming that if the supernatural is real, than the early dates are correct, but if the supernatural is not real, than the later dates are correct. That is interesting, to say the least.

Correct. The prophecies made by Jesus, for example, the destruction of the temple is a big one. If you don't believe in the supernatural, obviously you are going to err on the late dates because prophecy surely does not happen.

 

[Laurens]

Surely you have a mind and will look at the evidence circumstantially and see where ever that may lead...

From the time between the life of Jesus (AD 1-33) and the Council of Laodicea (AD 350-363) is well over three hundred years. So picture a timeline: Jesus on the left and a timeline to the first establishment of the canon of the Books. If we find writers about the Gospels and the Epistles closer to the right (the council) then skeptics will more than likely be correct that Jesus didn't exist and the New Testament is nothing but a fairy tale.

In actual fact the evidence suggests a gap of around 20 years from the supposed time of Jesus' death (30 - 33 CE) and the earliest Pauline Epistle (50 CE).

Despite what you say Paul is the earliest New Testament writer, Mark---the earliest Gospel is thought to have been written between 66 and 70 CE. So we have another 20 year or so gap between the authorship of Paul's first epistle and the gospel of Mark.

Given that Paul lived so near to the supposed death of Jesus it's strange that he does not recount anything that unambiguously places Jesus' life in recent history. He mentions his death and resurrection, but he never once puts it in Jerusalem at the hands of Pontious Pilate. He never talks about any of the supposed miracles or sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. In the authentic epistles there is a stunning lack of biographical detail about someone that was supposedly a recently dead rabbi.

It is true that Paul appears to possibly mention a brother of Jesus, however this is at best ambiguous. As I mentioned here there are problems with it.

We then get to Mark, who doesn't appear to be writing biographical history, but merely fiction. All of the gospels bear the marks of fiction. We have instances in which the narrative is given from an omniscient perspective. For example in Mark 14:55-65 we are given an account of the chief priests are looking for testimony to use against Jesus in order to put him to death, yet no disciples are present during the events in order to recount them later as witnesses. Again in Mark 15:1-5 we are told of an encounter between Pilate and Jesus. Elsewhere in Mark we are told that Jesus was "moved with pity" (Mark 1:41) how does the narrator know how Jesus felt?

We are also told of Jesus going into the wilderness and being tempted by Satan (Mark 1:12-13, Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:1-13). In none of these passages are we told that there was a witness present. So how are we told exactly what was said? You might argue that Jesus told the disciples at a later date, but this is not how it is presented. It is presented as a scene being described by an omniscient narrator.

Then we have the account of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-38, Matthew 26:36-40, Luke 22:39-45). We are told that the disciples are asleep when Jesus is praying, yet we are also told exactly what he said, when there were no witnesses present, or rather all the potential witnesses were asleep. Jesus has no possibility of being able to recount to the disciples what he said during his prayer because his is then seized by the authorities and subsequently executed.

You have to ask why a person writing history would add so much blatantly fictitious stuff.

We also have examples of events which are too symbolically pertinent to be actual history. Take the example of Barabbas (a name meaning son of the father), we are told that on special occasions the Roman authorities allowed people to choose a criminal to set loose (something that would never have happened under the ruthless Pilate). When Barabbas is released it is symbolic. Emulating the ceremony of Yom Kippur with two 'sons of the father' instead of sacrificial lambs. This adds a lot of symbolism of atonement and sacrifice to the crucifixion narrative. I think it's pretty clear that this is an allegorical and fictive account of the crucifixion.

There are many, many examples of elements in each gospel that are too convenient in structure to be actual historical events. Patterns and motifs can be seen in the structure of events---parallels drawn with Old Testament figures. I can only suggest reading Richard Carrier's book to get the full picture.

It is my contention that the gospels contain zero useful historical information. All of the fictive elements mean that we cannot devise a reasonable criteria by which to discern which content, if any, depicts actual historic events. In this article by Stephen Law he highlights a principle of contamination, by which the reliability of an account is diminished to the point of being useless due to the presence of such obvious fiction.

When you look closely at this chain of yours it would seem that it is pretty broken right from the get go. Paul says very little that can be regarded as biographical information and the Gospels are so wildly fictional that they cannot be trusted as historical sources for anything.

To answer your questions about events that apostles weren't there to witness them can be easily answered with Jesus was on earth for 40 days after the resurrection teaching his disciples.

And you keep referring the testimonies and the Gospels as "fiction" because of 20 year gaps based on late dates by scholars who don't believe in Jesus or His miracles, or the Gospels. It's much more reasonable that the synoptic Gospels came before Paul's epistles. Paul quotes from Luke's written account (1 Cor. 11:23-25). Luke's written account readily admitted that he wasn't an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus. He collected statements from the eyewitnesses as described in Luke 1:1-4. And Luke quoted 350 verses from Mark and 250 verses from Matthew.

There is simply no time to make fictitious stories. There is no proof of this whatsoever.

There is no credible reason to assume that Jesus came back from the dead to teach his followers. We're talking history here not fantasy. People don't come back from being dead. Even if there was a historical person behind Christianity it is vanishingly unlikely that he came back from the dead.

Many of the scholars who date the gospels assume that Jesus was a historical person. So they aren't trying to deny his existence by positing later dates. They are just going by the evidence that they have. I think it's far more likely that Luke quotes Paul rather than the other way around. What makes you so sure this isn't the case?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[Rhed]

There is no credible reason to assume that Jesus came back from the dead to teach his followers. We're talking history here not fantasy. People don't come back from being dead. Even if there was a historical person behind Christianity it is vanishingly unlikely that he came back from the dead.

Now we are getting somewhere. You are right, people don't resurrect from the dead naturally. In order to believe this to be true, one must believe in the supernatural. There is no way around that. Not one atheist or someone with a naturalistic worldview will ever accept this as true history. Your worldview must change first. You are logically interpreting the evidence according to your worldview. You will gravitate more towards the Ehrmans, Vermes, Waites, and the Carriers of the world.

Many of the scholars who date the gospels assume that Jesus was a historical person. So they aren't trying to deny his existence by positing later dates.

They date the gospels late because then it gives more time for fictional stories to creep in and no first hand eyewitness accounts.

They are just going by the evidence that they have. I think it's far more likely that Luke quotes Paul rather than the other way around. What makes you so sure this isn't the case?

The Last Supper is mentioned in all of the synoptic gospels. Luke doesn't mention Paul in his gospel or any of his letters. Apostle Paul describes his interactions Peter and James and learned about the gospel accounts (Gal 1:15-19).

It's far more likely Paul quoted Luke.

.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

That does not really answer the question now does it? Do you have citations to show that the names attached to the Gospels were written by their namesakes or do you just believe that because of biblical tradition?

Well why wouldn't the tradition be from the Gospel according to Peter, or the Gospel of Jesus, or other close apostles? Why Luke or Mark who were not eyewitnesses of Jesus's ministry? The biblical tradition matches the historical account of 1st century scribes. Why question it?

This is far outside my wheelhouse, so I will have to rest my understanding of it on the scholarly consensus (which was partially outlined by Laurens). Thus far, you have done nothing to provide evidence that the consensus is mistaken in anyway. I await your evidence to overturn what has already been established.

In addition, it seems like you are claiming that if the supernatural is real, than the early dates are correct, but if the supernatural is not real, than the later dates are correct. That is interesting, to say the least.

Correct. The prophecies made by Jesus, for example, the destruction of the temple is a big one. If you don't believe in the supernatural, obviously you are going to err on the late dates because prophecy surely does not happen.

Even if Jesus actually predicted the temples destruction, is that really an example of prothetic prophecy? Before 9/11, some people in the U.S. were predicting some sort of terrible strike by Muslim Extremist and most of them thought ben Laden would be behind it. Were they prothetic or were they just able to read the signs and make a very educated guess as to what would most likely happen?

Beyond that, you still have not shown that there is a supernatural, nor have you linked that super-nature to any deity, nor have you linked that deity to Yahweh, and nor have you linked Yahweh to Jesus. You have a very long walk before you can start saying Bible prophecies have anything to do with Yahweh or that Jesus is (the son of) Yahweh.

To answer your questions about events that apostles weren't there to witness them can be easily answered with Jesus was on earth for 40 days after the resurrection teaching his disciples.

The ultimate cheat code. Do you honestly believe this is a valid argument?

 

[Laurens]

Now we are getting somewhere. You are right, people don't resurrect from the dead naturally. In order to believe this to be true, one must believe in the supernatural. There is no way around that. Not one atheist or someone with a naturalistic worldview will ever accept this as true history. Your worldview must change first. You are logically interpreting the evidence according to your worldview. You will gravitate more towards the Ehrmans, Vermes, Waites, and the Carriers of the world.

So in order to believe in Jesus, I just have to believe in Jesus and interpret everything in those terms? That is not logical in the slightest I'm afraid.

They date the gospels late because then it gives more time for fictional stories to creep in and no first hand eyewitness accounts.

That isn't true. Dating documents such as the Gospels is pretty difficult. As far as I know the scholarly consensus is often more towards the early end of the spectrum, often precisely because they want them to establish historicity. However it is by and large agreed that Mark was after the destruction of the temple because the text contains allusions to it.

The Last Supper is mentioned in all of the synoptic gospels. Luke doesn't mention Paul in his gospel or any of his letters. Apostle Paul describes his interactions Peter and James and learned about the gospel accounts (Gal 1:15-19).

It's far more likely Paul quoted Luke.

Luke doesn't need to mention Paul to quote him. Does Paul mention Luke when he supposedly quotes him?

Describing interactions with people later made into disciples in the gospels does in no way prove or even provide evidence that Luke wrote first. If Paul said "as it was written by the apostle Luke..." then you'd have a point, but he doesn't because Luke was written decades after.

 

[Rhed]

The Last Supper is mentioned in all of the synoptic gospels. Luke doesn't mention Paul in his gospel or any of his letters. Apostle Paul describes his interactions Peter and James and learned about the gospel accounts (Gal 1:15-19).

It's far more likely Paul quoted Luke.

Luke doesn't need to mention Paul to quote him. Does Paul mention Luke when he supposedly quotes him?

Describing interactions with people later made into disciples in the gospels does in no way prove or even provide evidence that Luke wrote first. If Paul said "as it was written by the apostle Luke..." then you'd have a point, but he doesn't because Luke was written decades after.

Look at the context. It would be silly to believe that Paul made a brief statement about the Last Supper and then have Luke write the event. That's like me saying "Luke, I am your father", then have the whole Star Wars saga built upon that statement. It makes more sense that the Star Wars saga was created first, then me simply quoting from it. Hence, it makes sense that Luke wrote about the Last Supper and Paul quoting Luke.

 

[WarK]

Look at the context. It would be silly to believe that Paul made a brief statement about the Last Supper and then have Luke write the event. That's like me saying "Luke, I am your father", then have the whole Star Wars saga built upon that statement. It makes more sense that the Star Wars saga was created first, then me simply quoting from it. Hence, it makes sense that Luke wrote about the Last Supper and Paul quoting Luke.

So Darth Vader is Yahweh?

Oh well, I'm not a Star Wars fan anyway.

 

[Laurens]

The Last Supper is mentioned in all of the synoptic gospels. Luke doesn't mention Paul in his gospel or any of his letters. Apostle Paul describes his interactions Peter and James and learned about the gospel accounts (Gal 1:15-19).

It's far more likely Paul quoted Luke.

Luke doesn't need to mention Paul to quote him. Does Paul mention Luke when he supposedly quotes him?

Describing interactions with people later made into disciples in the gospels does in no way prove or even provide evidence that Luke wrote first. If Paul said "as it was written by the apostle Luke..." then you'd have a point, but he doesn't because Luke was written decades after.

Look at the context. It would be silly to believe that Paul made a brief statement about the Last Supper and then have Luke write the event. That's like me saying "Luke, I am your father", then have the whole Star Wars saga built upon that statement. It makes more sense that the Star Wars saga was created first, then me simply quoting from it. Hence, it makes sense that Luke wrote about the Last Supper and Paul quoting Luke.

That's not an accurate analogy at all.

A more correct one would be if I wrote loads of letters about my religion, and within those letters I say some pretty cool stuff about a guy, but not a great deal.

You then sit down, a few years later and decide to write a book about the life of this dude, you don't have much to go on, but one of the few things you do have as source material is one of the letters that I wrote. So you quote it, and incorporate something that I said into a historical context.

There is nothing unreasonable about that sequence of events.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

I just finished watching the above debate and wanted to throw an idea out there for a historical Yeshua that accounts for the destroyed evidence of his existence.

If you watch the first ~30 minutes of the debate Ehrman lays out the evolution of the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. It starts off with the early Christian church believing Jesus became God at the resurrection, Jesus became God at his baptism, Jesus became God at his birth, and finally (the modern view) Jesus always being Yahweh. Everyone is in agreement that Paul and Mark are the earliest writings about Jesus. Ehrman makes it clear that the story in Mark has it where nobody knows that Jesus is God until after the resurrection of Christ. This lines up with the earliest views of Jesus becoming God at his death and not always being Yahweh.

Given that, would it make sense to believe that the Jesus Paul wrote about (being the earliest evidence for Jesus) could be based on a real holy man that people believed died and came back from the dead. Based on this, the author of Mark made up a mostly fictional history for Yeshua, making it clear that people did not believe Jesus was God until after his death and resurrection.

Something like this would explain why so few writings about the early church survive. Any early writings about Yeshua would have told the story of a holy man that was later reincarnated as a God. That means the early writings of Paul that talked about this man were destroyed by the later Christians that believed Jesus was God from the beginning.

What is fundamentally wrong about this scenario of a man named Yeshua later becoming known as Jesus Christ? From my armchair analysis, it appears this scenario accounts for the evidence as much as mythicism does.

 

[Laurens]

I just finished watching the above debate and wanted to throw an idea out there for a historical Yeshua that accounts for the destroyed evidence of his existence.

If you watch the first ~30 minutes of the debate Ehrman lays out the evolution of the belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ. It starts off with the early Christian church believing Jesus became God at the resurrection, Jesus became God at his baptism, Jesus became God at his birth, and finally (the modern view) Jesus always being Yahweh. Everyone is in agreement that Paul and Mark are the earliest writings about Jesus. Ehrman makes it clear that the story in Mark has it where nobody knows that Jesus is God until after the resurrection of Christ. This lines up with the earliest views of Jesus becoming God at his death and not always being Yahweh.

Given that, would it make sense to believe that the Jesus Paul wrote about (being the earliest evidence for Jesus) could be based on a real holy man that people believed died and came back from the dead. Based on this, the author of Mark made up a mostly fictional history for Yeshua, making it clear that people did not believe Jesus was God until after his death and resurrection.

Something like this would explain why so few writings about the early church survive. Any early writings about Yeshua would have told the story of a holy man that was later reincarnated as a God. That means the early writings of Paul that talked about this man were destroyed by the later Christians that believed Jesus was God from the beginning.

What is fundamentally wrong about this scenario of a man named Yeshua later becoming known as Jesus Christ? From my armchair analysis, it appears this scenario accounts for the evidence as much as mythicism does.

As a brief response, I hope you'll forgive me for not currently having time to watch the video or find citations. Although I am happy to fill in the specifics when I have a bit more time and energy.

My main argument against this is that it is reasonable to expect more historical detail from Paul if we are to suppose that he was writing about a recently deceased holy man. Whilst it is obviously inconclusive to use an argument from silence, we might reasonably ask ourselves what we might expect letters about a recently dead holy man to read like. We might expect some quotes if they were particularly revered as a teacher. We might expect some biographical detail that relates to specific people, events, and places. We might expect those responsible for the execution to be named as well as the location of the burial site. We might expect them to be spoken of in terms that explicitly refer to a historical person.

The issue with Paul is that it doesn't read like this. A point that Richard Carrier hits home a lot is that Paul only refers to Jesus' as appearing in scripture and revelation. Not to people's faces in Jerusalem recently before being killed by the Romans. Of course Paul might have had an odd disinterest in talking about Jesus in ways that unambiguously refer to him as a recently dead Galilean Jew, but one has to admit that it is weird.

Of course it can be tricky to argue that Paul's failure to be unambiguous about Jesus therefore necessitates mythicism, but it is also tircky to use him to argue for historicity given the fact that he doesn't really say much that confirms it.

It's worth also noting that in Carrier's Bayesian analysis he grants Paul as evidence for historicity and against mythicism and historicity still doesn't come up as the most likely hypothesis given the evidence.

 

[he_who_is_nobody]

As a brief response, I hope you'll forgive me for not currently having time to watch the video or find citations. Although I am happy to fill in the specifics when I have a bit more time and energy.

As I said, for the purposes of this discussion, one just needs to watch the first ~30 minutes. However, it is an interesting debate, thus I would recommend watching the whole thing when you have time for your own enjoyment.

My main argument against this is that it is reasonable to expect more historical detail from Paul if we are to suppose that he was writing about a recently deceased holy man. Whilst it is obviously inconclusive to use an argument from silence, we might reasonably ask ourselves what we might expect letters about a recently dead holy man to read like. We might expect some quotes if they were particularly revered as a teacher. We might expect some biographical detail that relates to specific people, events, and places. We might expect those responsible for the execution to be named as well as the location of the burial site. We might expect them to be spoken of in terms that explicitly refer to a historical person.

That is what I was hoping to account for with the evolution of Yeshua into Jesus Christ. If Yeshua was only a street preacher that was later turned into (the son of) God, than perhaps there were more writings from Paul talking about this. Since early on the idea of Jesus being raised to god status falls out of favor, than writings about the actual Yeshua would have been destroyed by the early church in favor of writings that make Jesus out to be God. Mark gives us a glimpse into that early idea that Jesus did not start off as God, but was later raised to that status.

The issue with Paul is that it doesn't read like this. A point that Richard Carrier hits home a lot is that Paul only refers to Jesus' as appearing in scripture and revelation. Not to people's faces in Jerusalem recently before being killed by the Romans. Of course Paul might have had an odd disinterest in talking about Jesus in ways that unambiguously refer to him as a recently dead Galilean Jew, but one has to admit that it is weird.

I am looking at this through the filter of the church destroying any writings that they disagreed with. Thus, Paul's writings about the resurrected Yeshua would have made the cut, but not his writings about the life of Yeshua. My point is, if Paul wrote about a man that later became a god at his death or baptism, than those writings would not have been welcomed by the church that believed Jesus was (the son of) God. I see the problem with this line of reasoning, but I am just wondering how you (or anyone else supporting mythicism) feels about the evolution of Jesus from preacher to god status.

Of course it can be tricky to argue that Paul's failure to be unambiguous about Jesus therefore necessitates mythicism, but it is also tircky to use him to argue for historicity given the fact that he doesn't really say much that confirms it.

Again, we are looking at this evidence through the filter of the early church. Perhaps Paul quoted Yeshua extensively, but all those quotes expose Yeshua as a mere mortal that later became a god. Again, this is a counter factual, but intrinsic to mythicism is the idea that early writings about a celestial Jesus were destroyed. Thus, I do not see what is wrong with thinking that a man being raised to god status writings would have been destroyed for the same reasons that a celestial Jesus' writings would have been destroyed.

It's worth also noting that in Carrier's Bayesian analysis he grants Paul as evidence for historicity and against mythicism and historicity still doesn't come up as the most likely hypothesis given the evidence.

In all fairness, I have not read Carrier's book, thus, I will concede this point. I just find it interesting that you can see from the earliest to the latest Gospels a progression of Jesus from raised preacher to full blown God. I do believe that the Gospels are mostly/purely fiction, but they do seem to highlight the beliefs of the early Christians. It just seems amazing that a celestial Jesus would have his earliest life story be a narrative of being an exalted teacher.

 

[Laurens]

Okay so I am currently working my way through the video and making points as they seem relevant.

Firstly Ehrman appeals to a fallacious notion that there was only one kind of Messiah to the Jews. One that would be a military ruler who would physically defeat the enemies. This point is exposed quite in depth in Carrier's book, who points out that although some schools of Jewish thought might have pointed towards a militarily victorious Messiah, other schools of pre-Christian Jewish thought pointed to the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 as the Messiah. On the Historicity of Jesus states:

First, the Talmud provides us with proof of concept at the very least (and actual confirmation at the very most). It explicitly says the suffering servant who dies in Isaiah 53 is the messiah (and that this messiah will endure great suffering before his death). The Talmud likewise has a dying-and-rising 'Christ son of Joseph' ideology in it, even saying (quoting Zech. 12.10) that this messiah will be 'pierced' to death. Modern scholars are too quick to dismiss this text as late (dating as it does from the fourth to sixth century), since the doctrine it describes is unlikely to be. For only when Jews had no idea what Christians would do with this connection would they themselves have promoted it. There is no plausible way later Jews would invent interpolations of their scripture that supported and vindicated Christians. The would not invent a Christ with a father named Joseph who dies and is resurrected (as the Talmud does indeed describe).

- Page 73

We even have the book of Daniel which explicitly states that the messiah would die before the end of the world.

the Anointed One will be put to death and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary

Dan. 9.26

The Wisdom of Solomon, an important book to early Christians states:

Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."

Wis 2.17-20

[/quote]

We also have a Dead Sea Scroll that links Daniel 9 with Isaiah 52-53.

I won't pursue this further here, I will just state that despite Ehrman's claim a decent case can be made that some pre-Christian Jews believed that the Messiah would suffer and die.

He states that it is not controversial that Jesus' disciples did not believe that Jesus was God. I think it is controversial given that we do know what they said or believed, or if they ever knew a Jesus. What we have is what it says in the Gospels which are completely unreliable as historical documents.

The important thing Ehrman misses when he talks about Paul describing Jesus appearing to people is that he never talks about those people as though they knew a living man, he speaks about Jesus as though he appeared only through scripture and revelation. The only points of contention here are references to Jesus being born of the seed of David and there being brothers of the Lord. Carrier's case against these points is available in most of his talks and I have gone over some of the points in this very topic. For interests of brevity I will skim over those for now, but for rebuttal I refer to Carrier's points.

He also extrapolates that these people believed Jesus ascended into heaven from Earth, as far as I know Paul doesn't say this of himself or the other Apostles. For some reason he connects this with things said about Jesus in the gospels as though these are indicative of the beliefs of the Apostles he mentioned without pointing out that they were written decades later by different people.

He refers to a verse in Acts as evidence of what the earliest of Christians believed. However he doesn't state whether this is reflected in the Epistles of Paul or in Hebrews---the earliest books in the Bible. If adoptionism or whatever he called it was in those books explicitly rather than in an ambiguous speech in Acts he might have a better case. If it was important that Jesus became adopted at his resurrection as the Son of God, why is it not more prevalent in Paul/Hebrews?

As far as the idea goes that later Christians censored earlier beliefs that portrayed this view, I would ask the following questions. Why did they only censor the view that Jesus became God at death in Paul and not Mark? If as Ehrman states this view is described in Mark as the earliest Gospel, why would they censor that early view from Paul and not Mark? Why would they stop there, why not censor all views up to the point where Jesus became 'always God' in John?

I don't believe that this view of Jesus is depicted in the earliest sources. To argue it was censored is appealing to stuff that isn't there. What is there does not support this view, and thus I do not see it as equally likely.

 

[thenexttodie]

What we have is what it says in the Gospels which are completely unreliable as historical documents.

This is just some guy's fucking opinion? Is it not? Why would you post some bullshit like this and try to pass it off?

 

[Laurens]

What we have is what it says in the Gospels which are completely unreliable as historical documents.

This is just some guy's fucking opinion? Is it not? Why would you post some bullshit like this and try to pass it off?

It's not just his opinion. It's arguments in support of his opinion.

If 'that's just someone's opinion' was a valid critique of something no contentious issue would ever be discussed sensibly.

 

[thenexttodie]

It's not just his opinion. It's arguments in support of his opinion.

If 'that's just someone's opinion' was a valid critique of something no contentious issue would ever be discussed sensibly.

No, its just someone's opinion. And it's basically bullshit. The further back you go, the more easier it is to come up with some bullshit as to why you shouldn't believe something someone said back then.

Lets say I was envolved in a very serious car accident where a semi truck ran a red light and ran over my car and I somehow I survived with only some minor injuries. My auto insurence calls me 5 days later to give a recorded statement about what happened. 10 years later I must goto court and the recording of the statement I made was lost. So I must tell them what I said in that statement, 10 years ago. Do you think the judge would say "hey wait a minute! Laurens has already showed us how to determine historical facts on his web forum. Quick, lets all read this link he posted to an article published in Faith and Philosophy? lol

 

[Laurens]

No, its just someone's opinion. And it's basically bullshit. The further back you go, the more easier it is to come up with some bullshit as to why you shouldn't believe something someone said back then.

Lets say I was envolved in a very serious car accident where a semi truck ran a red light and ran over my car and I somehow I survived with only some minor injuries. My auto insurence calls me 5 days later to give a recorded statement about what happened. 10 years later I must goto court and the recording of the statement I made was lost. So I must tell them what I said in that statement, 10 years ago. Do you think the judge would say "hey wait a minute! Laurens has already showed us how to determine historical facts on his web forum. Quick, lets all read this link he posted to an article published in Faith and Philosophy? lol

Why is his argument bullshit? So far as I can tell his principle of contamination makes perfect sense. As do all of the analogies he uses. But I guess I have to discount that because you have said it is bullshit.

Why is it bullshit? His analogies specifically don't go that far back into history he talks about people making recent claims about someone who carries out miracles. So the only thing you remotely said that was like a point against it is bullshit.

The simple fact of the matter is where the Gospels say something about history that can be confirmed, they conflict one another. Can you give an exact date that Jesus was born? No you can't because Matthew and Luke place it during different periods.

The other thing is that the Gospels are so clearly fictional that they cannot be regarded as useful historical documents. I mentioned previously about events having far too much symbolic significance to possibly be recordings of actual events. Mark can be broken down into quite clear tridactic structure, with events that mirror events in the Old Testament. I don't have the time to go into detail but I can recommend Carrier's chapter on the Gospels. Not only does Law's principle of contamination render the Gospels useless as history, they bare the hallmarks of elaborate symbolic fiction.

It is not controversial that the Gospels are wrought with myth. Most scholars would agree with this. The argument I put forth is that there is no valid method to determine what is historical information and what is not from propagandistic works of literature containing obvious and elaborate myth. Thus we have to conclude that nothing in them has any worth as history.

This is not true of other historical figures. Take Alexander the Great for example, we have numerous independent writings about him. Some of them contain mythology, but where they agree independently we can say that they provide us with some useful historical information. The gospels contain so much mythology and nothing that can be verified in independent sources. They might talk about events and places that actually existed but that doesn't provide clear evidence that all of the events described actually happened.

What day was Jesus executed on? Do the gospels agree?

Was the sermon on the mount on a mount or a plain?

How many people were at the tomb?

The Gospels don't agree even with each other, how can we possibly say they are useful documents?

 

[SpecialFrog]

thenexttodie is presenting a classical "argumentum a Dudus".

 

[thenexttodie]

Paul says Jesus was crucified but he never mentions Pilate (if he does I'd be curious to know as to where?)

1st Timothy Chapter 6 verse 13.

 

[Laurens]

Paul says Jesus was crucified but he never mentions Pilate (if he does I'd be curious to know as to where?)

1st Timothy Chapter 6 verse 13.

The letters thought to be pseudepigraphic by about 80% of scholars:

First Timothy
Second Timothy
Titus
Ephesians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epistles#Authenticity