...I would LOVE to be better educated in this regard, and would absolutely appreciate your efforts to illuminate, but please do so in a clear and viable dialogue that presents your sides version so non-academics like myself walk away scratching our head (or asses if preferred) .
I can try. But it will have to wait. It's late on my side of the world.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
^
This video was presumably posted in response to my claim that Hitchens had never debated an actual biblical scholar on the matter of the Bible. Your link actually exacerbates my point, since Marvin Olasky is neither a biblical scholar, nor is he even regarded as a representative of mainstream scholarship even among his own academic peers. His utter dearth of anything more than a passing familiarity with ancient history and biblical issues is painfully evident in that debate. It is little short of embarrassing.
I repeat: Had Hitchens ever engaged an actual biblical scholar about the Bible, he would have been obliterated on the arguments.
The Case for the Existence of Jesus of Nazareth
In the following few posts, I will outline as simply as I can manage the argument for the life of the man Jesus, who lived and died in Palestine in the early first cent. CE, and upon whom the Christian religion was based. Like all historical investigations, the topic of the historical Jesus is one that depends upon historical probabilities. So, the case I will be mounting is a positive argument that does not purport any certainty about the existence of Jesus, but rather is summarised as follows:
It is historically more plausible that the man Jesus existed than it is that he was invented and mythologized.
The reason for this is quite simple: In the historical and cultural context of first cent. Palestine, it is practically impossible that the claims made by the Church about Jesus would have been invented, and virtually certain that they would have gained no traction. On the contrary, it is much more reasonable to expect that:
· there was an actual man from Nazareth named Jesus.
· he was a religious zealot who led an apocalyptic religious movement in the Judaean hill country.
· he caused a religious disturbance in Jerusalem that led to his arrest, trial and Roman execution.
· something happened following his execution to lead his followers to assert his resurrection, and which laid the groundwork for the enormously popular early Christian movement.
First and foremost, Jesus was Jewish, and all of his first followers were Jewish. My specialty is early Judaism and in particular, apocalyptic movements, "scripture" interpretation, and the transition between "temple religion" and "book religion". I know something about Jewish thought, Jewish worldviews, and more pertinently, Jewish messianic expectations that were percolating in the politically volatile and highly charged religious climate in first cent. Palestine. Most Jews had known nothing but foreign occupation for the better part of the past half millennium, with a lone possible exception of the independent Hasmonaean state that existed for about 100 years before the invasion of Pompey in the 60's BCE. Most Jews were weary of Roman taxation, and disillusioned by the failures of their own nationalistic ambitions, and the corruption that was rampant in their own religious establishment. Huge numbers of Jews were suspicious of foreign influence, and as a result were extremely dubious about the pervasive influences of Hellenistic culture that had been intruding on their own cultural and religious ideals. It is important to note that for centuries the Jews had understood themselves to be a divinely favoured ethnic group, and "religiously separate" and distinct from every other people group on the planet: this is a somewhat simplified and rudimentary definition of "holiness". Because of their past history, and in line with their own self perception, it had become common for many—perhaps most Jews to believe that their fortunes would be reversed by way of a movement by God. They expected that God would intervene, and that he would empower (or "anoint") a national leader to wage a holy war against the Romans, which would result in Jewish global supremacy, and the establishment of an eternal divine rule that was centred in Jerusalem. This, in very basic terms was what they understood to be the "kingdom of God".
So, this was the world into which Jesus was born, and in which he lived. It is practically certain that Jesus was an apocalyptic revolutionary. He embraced the idea of divine intervention, and he actively campaigned for the imminent intervention of God. He may or may not have believed that he was the "messiah", that is, the anointed one of God to restore the kingdom of Israel, to defeat the Romans, and to inaugurate the kingdom of God. He attracted a good deal of attention for his ideas, and amassed a following among his local, bucolic contemporaries.
This basic storyline is what is revealed by a close read, and a historically and critically sensitive understanding of the Gospels. They are not eyewitness accounts, but they do contain numerous kernals of information that are regarded by any historical measure to be accurate reflections of a real movement led by a real man named Jesus.
Now, let's consider the contrary: that this particular Jewish messiah (Jesus was NOT the only one to make messianic claims in the first century!) was fabricated to fulfill popular Jewish expectations. That they invented a miracle-working peasant preacher to fulfil the scriptural prophecies about the divinely anointed national hero who would vanquish the enemies and oppressors of Judaea. In all honesty, why would any Jew in the first place have invented such a figure, and in the second place, why would any other Jew choose to believe in him? Apart from the purported miracles, Jesus was socially unexceptional, and were someone to invent a messiah, he most certainly would have appeared much more closely aligned to the following example:
Quote:
Originally Posted by 11QMelchizedek
"For this is the time decreed for “the year of Melchiz[edek]’s favor” (Isaiah 61:2, modified) and for [his] hos[ts, together] with the holy ones of God, for a kingdom of judgment, just as it is written concerning him in the Songs of David, “A godlike being has taken his place in the coun[cil of God;] in the midst of the divine beings he holds judgment” (Psalm 82:1). Scripture also s[ays] about him, “Over [it] take your seat in the highest heaven;A divine being will judge the peoples” (Psalm 7:7–8).
Without even getting to the enormous problem of Jesus's death for Jews and the common messianic narrative, the case against the historical Jesus is already on very shaky ground. In short, the construct that Richard Carrier, Robert Price and the other mythicists want us to believe is neither historically nor culturally possible. It is much more probable that Jesus actually existed.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
I find that hard to believe and what do you think his arguments what have been?
I suspect that the reason Hitchens would have been obliterated in a Bible debate with a biblical scholar is because he is an amateur possessing only a fraction of understanding of the disciplines required to accurately handle ancient texts. It seems like a pretty safe bet to me.
As for more specifics regarding his arguments, these depend entirely upon the topic of debate, but I expect that he likely would have been owned on his poor perspective of historical and cultural contexts, his misunderstanding and misappropriation of ancient perspectives of literature, and the anachronistic problems with his own hermeneutic.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
TC, I shared the great post you had with Richard Carrier, here is his response.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
First, the statement "it is practically impossible that the claims made by the Church about Jesus would have been invented, and virtually certain that they would have gained no traction" is self-refuting, since attaching those teachings to a historical man would not make all this any more probable (in fact, arguably less so), so this cannot be an argument for historicity.
Second, all his arguments hinge on the identifier "Most Jews" but Christianity was not successful among "most Jews" (in fact, barely any, and those mostly the Hellenized diaspora Jews, not Palestinian orthodox Jews this author is speaking about) and was not originated by any majority Jewish group, but a fringe radical group who by definition were despised by "most Jews" and actively preached against "most Jews." Therefore all his premises do not apply to the historicity of Jesus. What "most Jews" thought or did is irrelevant to the origins of Christianity.
For example, the claim that on Jesus-myth theory Jesus "was fabricated to fulfill popular Jewish expectations" is simply false. It was "fabricated" to fulfill the expectations of a radical fringe group that mainly positioned itself in opposition to popular Jewish expectations.
The word "fabricated" is a bit misleading as well, since arguably the first apostles didn't consciously fabricate anything but convinced themselves of what they believed the way many religious innovators do (although the alternative, a Mormon-style model of deliberate fabrication, is also possible; though again notice how a "most Americans" argument for the historicity of the angel Moroni would seem absurd, since Mormonism was not contrived to satisfy what "most Americans" thought or expected and at any rate there was no Moroni). The Gospels, however, were certainly consciously fabricated, but that's different from the origin of the religion (the Gospels came half a century later).
Finally, his closing argument that if the Jews were to invent a messiah they would invent a triumphant one is impossible and thus not a logical thing to say. See my remarks on this weird argument here:
...except, of course, insofar as this messiah is only "triumphant" invisibly--as in, in heaven. Notice that that is in fact just what the Christians invented: “A godlike being has taken his place in the coun[cil of God;] in the midst of the divine beings he holds judgment” is true of the first Christian teaching of Jesus even on the Jesus myth theory (since on that theory, Jesus only acts and triumphs in heaven, precisely where no one else but apostles could see him, which is precisely the only kind of messiah one could invent, obviously).
What we have instead is a Jewish radical cult that took Daniel 9 seriously as a prophecy of the last messiah before the end times, and attached this prophecy to a Philonic celestial being: http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1440
By contrast, the theory this author proposes for historicity is, however, still the second most likely, i.e. if no Jesus myth theory is correct, then the theory he articulates is indeed what is probably the case. But this theory, and his argument for it here, simply does not interact with the case for any Jesus myth theory, much less the most plausible of them (which is, IMO, a minimalized Doherty theory).
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I suspect that the reason Hitchens would have been obliterated in a Bible debate with a biblical scholar is because he is an amateur possessing only a fraction of understanding of the disciplines required to accurately handle ancient texts. It seems like a pretty safe bet to me.
As for more specifics regarding his arguments, these depend entirely upon the topic of debate, but I expect that he likely would have been owned on his poor perspective of historical and cultural contexts, his misunderstanding and misappropriation of ancient perspectives of literature, and the anachronistic problems with his own hermeneutic.
To be certain, Hitchens fight was with those whose belief that the religious tomes by which they aspired was the word of a God. The fact that scholars know better would remove that arena from Hitchens scorn.
Hitchens battled the ignorant on their ground.
He wasn't doing as well as many of his followers would lead me to believe against a weak opponent who was picked to give him an easy debate.
You have no proof of that at all. Many religious zealots lined up to take Hitchens on and were mercilessly destroyed based on their inadequate knowledge of the very thing they espoused as fact. As I mentioned above, Hitchens fight was with those who believed that their bibles were in fact the word of God.
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So, this was the world into which Jesus was born, and in which he lived. It is practically certain that Jesus was an apocalyptic revolutionary. He embraced the idea of divine intervention, and he actively campaigned for the imminent intervention of God. He may or may not have believed that he was the "messiah", that is, the anointed one of God to restore the kingdom of Israel, to defeat the Romans, and to inaugurate the kingdom of God. He attracted a good deal of attention for his ideas, and amassed a following among his local, bucolic contemporaries.
This basic storyline is what is revealed by a close read, and a historically and critically sensitive understanding of the Gospels. They are not eyewitness accounts, but they do contain numerous kernals of information that are regarded by any historical measure to be accurate reflections of a real movement led by a real man named Jesus.
Now, let's consider the contrary: that this particular Jewish messiah (Jesus was NOT the only one to make messianic claims in the first century!) was fabricated to fulfill popular Jewish expectations. That they invented a miracle-working peasant preacher to fulfil the scriptural prophecies about the divinely anointed national hero who would vanquish the enemies and oppressors of Judaea. In all honesty, why would any Jew in the first place have invented such a figure, and in the second place, why would any other Jew choose to believe in him? Apart from the purported miracles, Jesus was socially unexceptional, and were someone to invent a messiah, he most certainly would have appeared much more closely aligned to the following example:
Without even getting to the enormous problem of Jesus's death for Jews and the common messianic narrative, the case against the historical Jesus is already on very shaky ground. In short, the construct that Richard Carrier, Robert Price and the other mythicists want us to believe is neither historically nor culturally possible. It is much more probable that Jesus actually existed.
I have never doubted that Jesus existed and that he had a following, then he was crucified by the very church hiarachy he was railing against and his followers, who were expecting the end of the world or the like, tried to make sense of their whole faith being taken apart.
At this point, a few weeks after his death, either on purpose in order to hold the faithfull together or just due to rumours that took on a life of their own, his followers started to believe he had risen from the dead and that the prophesy they were expecting had been fullfilled.
Absoloutly nothing strange about this at all, every few years we get groups of wack jobs who kill themselves because some other wack job tells them they are all off to an asteroid to live with god, the christians just happened to coincide with a time of great upheaval that enabled them to thrive rather than die out as a purely jewish sect.
That having been said that he existed doesn't mean everything writen about him afterward wasn't complete bull made up from half remembered stories or just plainly lied about by the early church in order to up jesus and make him more saleable to converts, converts that, even then, represented money and power.
Last edited by afc wimbledon; 03-16-2013 at 03:47 AM.
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It is historically more plausible that the man Jesus existed than it is that he was invented and mythologized.
The reason for this is quite simple: In the historical and cultural context of first cent. Palestine, it is practically impossible that the claims made by the Church about Jesus would have been invented, and virtually certain that they would have gained no traction. On the contrary, it is much more reasonable to expect that:
· there was an actual man from Nazareth named Jesus.
· he was a religious zealot who led an apocalyptic religious movement in the Judaean hill country.
· he caused a religious disturbance in Jerusalem that led to his arrest, trial and Roman execution.
· something happened following his execution to lead his followers to assert his resurrection, and which laid the groundwork for the enormously popular early Christian movement.
Based on your assertion that it would be "plausible" that a man named Jesus existed at this time, and the fact that he had a large movement along with many miracles attributed to him that caused the Romans to execute him, where are the records?
There is nothing, so unless you suggest that the Romans/Palestinians/any other group simply decided as a whole to eliminate any message of this heretic then the message has to be, he didn't exist or was a figment of a groups imagination.
Now I could be wrong and there "might be" something written on a man named Jesus, or written by Jesus himself, or there might be some artifact of his hidden away in a vault, but I haven't seen anything in my world that suggest the same. IF Scholars have this information it should be shared freely, implications should not be made.
It is just as likely that their was a group of Jews who wanted their own power, and were dissatisfied with the direction of their particular faith at the time, invented the man known as Jesus and rode this story to the fallacy we know today as Christianity? You can clearly see that they stole facets of many other religions to make their own seem like fact.
Last edited by Cheese; 03-17-2013 at 11:10 AM.
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TC, I shared the great post you had with Richard Carrier, here is his response.
I'm presently in the München airport and about to catch a flight, but I have every intention of responding to Carrier's somewhat reaching historical/philosophical critique.
Stay tuned!
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
This is a response to Richard Carrier's contention about the historicity of Jesus, which was helpfully provided by Thor. I should note at the outset that I have not spent so much time investigating the historicity of Jesus as has Carrier, but I do approach the question as a more general historian of the Second Temple Jewish period, and I do not believe that Carrier is all that well versed in this discipline.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
First, the statement "it is practically impossible that the claims made by the Church about Jesus would have been invented, and virtually certain that they would have gained no traction" is self-refuting, since attaching those teachings to a historical man would not make all this any more probable (in fact, arguably less so), so this cannot be an argument for historicity.
I’m certain that I am not as well versed in the philosophical nuances of what Carrier is getting at, but this does not sound right to me at all. Without knowing what he envisions by “those teachings” in this context, it is difficult to respond, but I still stand by my point: that many of the historical claims maintained by the first Christians about Jesus—that is, is modest social standing, his rejection in his hometown, his arrest, trial and execution—are all highly plausible historical realia, and would actually present themselves as self-defeating objectives of invention in a Second Temple Jewish milieu. In other words, it is much more historically plausible that an actual man existed from Nazareth than it is that he was invented by eager followers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
Second, all his arguments hinge on the identifier "Most Jews" but Christianity was not successful among "most Jews" (in fact, barely any, and those mostly the Hellenized diaspora Jews, not Palestinian orthodox Jews this author is speaking about) and was not originated by any majority Jewish group, but a fringe radical group who by definition were despised by "most Jews" and actively preached against "most Jews." Therefore all his premises do not apply to the historicity of Jesus. What "most Jews" thought or did is irrelevant to the origins of Christianity.
On this point, I was probably presenting too modest a qualification of the Jewish culture from which Christianity emerged. What “most Jews” thought or did is exceptionally relevant to this discussion, because in broad contours, and based on everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) that we know about Judaism and Jewish life from the period, practically EVERY Jew—whether in Jerusalem, Samaria, or in Alexandria—agreed about several fundamental principles. All Jews agreed about the characteristic singularity of God: the god of Judaism was the only God for every Jew. They agreed about the cruciality of “scripture”, even though their own understanding about what constituted scripture differed dramatically. They agreed about their peculiarity as a people, and consequently agreed about the future glorious emergence of the kingdom of God made manifest in a new kingdom of Israel. They undoubtedly differed with regards to their expectations about the shape and circumstances that they expected to result in this bright future, but elements of this apocalyptic worldview are prevalent in virtually all Jewish literature, including those sources which are barely recognisably “apocalyptic.”
So then, A Jewish message—and I maintain that Christian doctrine and traditions are strongly and almost universally “Jewish”—that is in contravention with these principles is not even remotely likely to survive among Jews. And while I agree that Christianity was note successful among “most Jews”, the majority of its earliest proponents were Synagogue-attending Jews. I suspect, based on the bits of Carrier that I have read, that he doesn’t have a really good grasp of Second Temple Jewish culture, life or religion, and that his off-hand handling of matters in this area leads him to make some of the assertions that he is prone to making. In other words, as one with professional training in Second Temple Jewish literature, religion and history, as one who is in regular and constant conversation with large numbers of other professionally trained scholars of Second Temple Jewish history, literature and religion I have yet to encounter anyone who would bother to deny the historical realia of Jesus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
...For example, the claim that on Jesus-myth theory Jesus "was fabricated to fulfill popular Jewish expectations" is simply false. It was "fabricated" to fulfill the expectations of a radical fringe group that mainly positioned itself in opposition to popular Jewish expectations.
The word "fabricated" is a bit misleading as well, since arguably the first apostles didn't consciously fabricate anything but convinced themselves of what they believed the way many religious innovators do (although the alternative, a Mormon-style model of deliberate fabrication, is also possible; though again notice how a "most Americans" argument for the historicity of the angel Moroni would seem absurd, since Mormonism was not contrived to satisfy what "most Americans" thought or expected and at any rate there was no Moroni). The Gospels, however, were certainly consciously fabricated, but that's different from the origin of the religion (the Gospels came half a century later).
The problem here is that even in Carrier’s allegory Mormon religion is still very comfortably at home within 19th cent. American life. I agree, the stories of Moroni were not invented to satisfy “most Americans”, but the Mormon teachings were first adopted universally by AMERICANS, and their perceived realia depended upon their integration of and within American culture. So too for Christianity: its foundations depended upon something that approximated Judaism, and any hypothetical origins offered by the mythicists as far as I can see absolutely do not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
Finally, his closing argument that if the Jews were to invent a messiah they would invent a triumphant one is impossible and thus not a logical thing to say. See my remarks on this weird argument here:
What Carrier is doing here is basically invoking Bertrand Russell’s teapot in space. His argument depends on the possibility that there were radical fringe groups of Jews under the veneer of everything we know about Second Temple Judaism, who harboured thoughts and dreams about a dying-rising-saviour god. No doubt. This is certainly possible, and just as no one can debunk the existence of a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars, so too I am incapable of disproving the possibility of existence of this odd and completely unattested Jewish sectarian movement.
However, Carrier’s problem is that unlike the many proponents of Schweitzer’s model for the historical Jesus, he has no evidence. At this point, when making his case about the possibility of an ethereal messiah figure that might resemble early Christian depictions of Jesus he would do well to cite some sort of evidence. Unfortunately, outside of the odd mythicist interpretation of the early Christian writings, there is not one shred of documented evidence for such a movement or doctrine. In the end, one is faced with a decision: to concede the historical plausibility of Jesus of Nazareth that easily conforms to everything that we know about Second Temple Judaism, or to imagine a mythical Christ that rests on nebulous interpretive injunctions and imagined social constructs. For all his bluster about his rigorous employment of philosophical and historical canons, I am quite frankly surprised that Carrier would be so easily carried away by such fanciful and unsubstantiated assertions.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
...except, of course, insofar as this messiah is only "triumphant" invisibly--as in, in heaven. Notice that that is in fact just what the Christians invented: “A godlike being has taken his place in the coun[cil of God;] in the midst of the divine beings he holds judgment” is true of the first Christian teaching of Jesus even on the Jesus myth theory (since on that theory, Jesus only acts and triumphs in heaven, precisely where no one else but apostles could see him, which is precisely the only kind of messiah one could invent, obviously).
What we have instead is a Jewish radical cult that took Daniel 9 seriously as a prophecy of the last messiah before the end times, and attached this prophecy to a Philonic celestial being: http://www.freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/archives/1440
My whole point in citing 11QMelchizedek from the Qumran Scrolls was precisely to illustrate how badly Jesus fit this model, to the point that it strains credulity to imagine how the subject of the Corinthian creed could ever be confused with Daniel’s Son of Man:
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:3–23
For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve . . . If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Carrier and the other mythicists continue to persistently miss this fundamental feature of the Christian idea about Jesus. They must somehow ignore or alegorise his humanness, and they must make the quantum leap in the absence of any evidence for his divinity somehow tied to the traditions of his death.
The earliest Christian creeds and teachings are universally binding on this point: Jesus was a man who died. He was NOT a celestial being, and he did NOT in any way conform to any imagined messianic prediction from Jewish scriptures. It thus remains much more plausible that these features were not inventions clumsily affixed to a mythical Christ being, since the teachings of the earliest Christians quite naturally proceed from the existence of an historical figure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Richard Carrier
By contrast, the theory this author proposes for historicity is, however, still the second most likely, i.e. if no Jesus myth theory is correct, then the theory he articulates is indeed what is probably the case. But this theory, and his argument for it here, simply does not interact with the case for any Jesus myth theory, much less the most plausible of them (which is, IMO, a minimalized Doherty theory).
I must confess, I am unfamiliar with the nuances of Carrier’s theory, but in my opinion, Doherty’s ideas are in no way defensible. However, I do concur on his final point here: “if no Jesus myth theory is correct, then the theory he articulates is indeed what is probably the case.” This is absolutely true. And since every Jesus myth theory proposed relies on no documented bits of evidence, and depends on flimsy and unsubstantiated interpretations of the early Christian literature, then I feel fairly justified in my continued defense of an historical Jesus.
Thanks again, Thor, for contacting Carrier and furnishing his rebuttal here.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
Based on your assertion that it would be "plausible" that a man named Jesus existed at this time, and the fact that he had a large movement along with many miracles attributed to him that caused the Romans to execute him, where are the records?
In the first place, I don't believe that I said that Jesus had a "large" following, only that he had a following of some sort. So, if it was modest, then it should hardly surprise us in the least that it did indeed escape notice.
In the second place, what sort of records do you imagine that we might find? Are there ANY records from Rome that document even a single crucifixion in Palestine in the first cents. BCE–CE? Are there any Roman records of crucifixion at all? Are there any actual Roman records that report on ANYTHING from Palestine? From anywhere?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
There is nothing, so unless you suggest that the Romans/Palestinians/any other group simply decided as a whole to eliminate any message of this heretic then the message has to be, he didn't exist or was a figment of a groups imagination.
Right, there is virtually nothing in the way of first-hand documentation. But you are from this asserting a false dilemma. The reason why there are no records about Jesus outside of Christian literature is because there are no actual records of ANYTHING from the period. The reason for this is that "record keeping" by our modern estimations did not exist in the ancient world, even for the most powerful and successful empirical administration before the emergence of the Ottoman Empire. The idea that Romans kept detailed records about the minutia of government is a well worn myth. In actual fact, there is virtually nothing in the way of empirical documentation that has survived from the first cent. CE.
Think about it in these terms: The last ruling high priest in the Jerusalem Temple was Phineas ben Samuel. Can you find any sort of "documentation" that points to his existence? Is there any Roman record from his administration? Is there any record at all of his tenure? No? Then by Carrier's historical method the most plausible explanation is that he was a mythical figure that was invented by Flavius Josephus. Quite frankly, the kind of historical documentation that you are demanding does not exist for practically any figure from antiquity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cheese
Now I could be wrong and there "might be" something written on a man named Jesus, or written by Jesus himself, or there might be some artifact of his hidden away in a vault, but I haven't seen anything in my world that suggest the same. IF Scholars have this information it should be shared freely, implications should not be made.
It is just as likely that their was a group of Jews who wanted their own power, and were dissatisfied with the direction of their particular faith at the time, invented the man known as Jesus and rode this story to the fallacy we know today as Christianity? You can clearly see that they stole facets of many other religions to make their own seem like fact.
What other facets of other religions were "stolen" by the early Church? What sort of evidence do you have of the cross-contamination between religions that produced Christian tradition?
As a matter of fact, and as I have outlined in my response to Richard Carrier above, it is not even remotely likely that any Jewish group in the first cent. would have invented the kind of religious story that conforms to the Christian message. Again, the veracity of the historical Jesus is so strongly assured because the alternatives are both implausible, and completely unsubstantiated by any sort of evidence.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
In the first place, I don't believe that I said that Jesus had a "large" following, only that he had a following of some sort. So, if it was modest, then it should hardly surprise us in the least that it did indeed escape notice.
In the second place, what sort of records do you imagine that we might find? Are there ANY records from Rome that document even a single crucifixion in Palestine in the first cents. BCE–CE? Are there any Roman records of crucifixion at all? Are there any actual Roman records that report on ANYTHING from Palestine? From anywhere?
Right, there is virtually nothing in the way of first-hand documentation. But you are from this asserting a false dilemma. The reason why there are no records about Jesus outside of Christian literature is because there are no actual records of ANYTHING from the period. The reason for this is that "record keeping" by our modern estimations did not exist in the ancient world, even for the most powerful and successful empirical administration before the emergence of the Ottoman Empire. The idea that Romans kept detailed records about the minutia of government is a well worn myth. In actual fact, there is virtually nothing in the way of empirical documentation that has survived from the first cent. CE.
Not trying to piss against the wind here, at times I feel as though its a bit of a hurricane!
Im not a historian or a PhD, but to suggest that there were no records kept at that time would simply not be fact unless I am missing something?
Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Seneca the Younger to name a few were known to be historians of the time and as far as I know their writings and philosophies live on? I think the times of their writings are referred to as the Silver or Gold age of writing?
So.... accounting for the fact that there were historians at that time who were responsible for recording those historic moments you would think that even a marginal group known as Christians who seemed to be doing some pretty remarkable things might have caught their eye/pen? Again I'm simply playing devils advocate here and know that we have writings on cave walls from cavemen....a millenia or three later the Greco-Romans had a pretty decent system of writing and recording history.
Tacitus even writes of a mass execution of Christians (Christus?) after a fire burned much of Rome, but nothing of Jesus?
This mention by Tacitus is likely the only mention of Christians recorded that I am aware of outside of the Canonical gospels? Perhaps Im wrong?
So we do have something...but not much and nothing attributable to Jesus.
Not trying to piss against the wind here, at times I feel as though its a bit of a hurricane!
Im not a historian or a PhD, but to suggest that there were no records kept at that time would simply not be fact unless I am missing something?
When speaking of "records" I believe most people are referring to official administrative documentation of the daily on-goings of the Roman Empire. These are the sorts of documents that do not exist, and there is not much evidence that Roman government was this well organised in the first place.
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Originally Posted by Cheese
Tacitus, Pliny the Younger and Seneca the Younger to name a few were known to be historians of the time and as far as I know their writings and philosophies live on? I think the times of their writings are referred to as the Silver or Gold age of writing?
That is correct.
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Originally Posted by Cheese
So.... accounting for the fact that there were historians at that time who were responsible for recording those historic moments you would think that even a marginal group known as Christians who seemed to be doing some pretty remarkable things might have caught their eye/pen?
It depends entirely upon what you believe is "remarkable". Furthermore, based on their writings and descriptions about Palestine, I am fairly certain that Tacitus, Heroditus, Pliny or whoever neither understood nor cared much about distinguishing one particular Jewish sect from another. In the first century CE and much of the second at least, Christians were still attending synagogues, reading Jewish scriptures, and celebrating Jewish festivals. In what way would they have appeared interesting enough to garner special attention?
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Originally Posted by Cheese
Again I'm simply playing devils advocate here and know that we have writings on cave walls from cavemen....a millenia or three later the Greco-Romans had a pretty decent system of writing and recording history.
Pretty decent by what standards? Certainly not by modern estimations, and I think most people have a tendency to either overestimate the extent and quality of evidence, or simply project modern expectations of what they imagined constituted "Roman record keeping" backwards. Again, our sources are pretty sparse, and not just for the existence of Jesus, but for the daily activities of huge numbers of people and instances.
I will ask you again, in an effort to illustrate exactly the paucity of the evidence. Phineas ben Samuel was the last ruling high priest in the Jerusalem Temple. Is he ever mentioned in a Roman document or recalled by a Roman historian? What does this say about his existence?
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Originally Posted by Cheese
Tacitus even writes of a mass execution of Christians (Christus?) after a fire burned much of Rome, but nothing of Jesus?
This mention by Tacitus is likely the only mention of Christians recorded that I am aware of outside of the Canonical gospels? Perhaps Im wrong?
Pliny also speaks about Christians in his letters to the Emperor, and Seutonus also possibly mentions them.
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Originally Posted by Cheese
So we do have something...but not much and nothing attributable to Jesus.
Right. But again, this should not come as any surprise, because most of our sources about everything in the Roman empire are sparse, and they do not really function like you seem to imagine that they should. We know that there were hundreds of so-called "mystery religions" throughout the empire, but we know virtually nothing about them. We know even less from Roman historians about the practices of mystery religions than we do about the presence of Christianity. Should we then become dubious about the existence of mystery religions?
It seems to me that you along with a number of mythicists are dismissing all the evidence in the Gospels and in Paul for the existence of Jesus, on the basis that they are agenda driven sources. That may very well be, but they are still our best sources for the life of Jesus, and they do in fact contain a good deal of historical information, even amid the clutter of propaganda and "mythicised" exaggerations. In this instance, I am using the word "myth" differently, to note that many of the stories we have about Jesus have been developed or even cut from whole cloth to express various theological ideas.
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Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
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Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
When speaking of "records" I believe most people are referring to official administrative documentation of the daily on-goings of the Roman Empire. These are the sorts of documents that do not exist, and there is not much evidence that Roman government was this well organised in the first place.
It depends entirely upon what you believe is "remarkable". Furthermore, based on their writings and descriptions about Palestine, I am fairly certain that Tacitus, Heroditus, Pliny or whoever neither understood nor cared much about distinguishing one particular Jewish sect from another. In the first century CE and much of the second at least, Christians were still attending synagogues, reading Jewish scriptures, and celebrating Jewish festivals. In what way would they have appeared interesting enough to garner special attention?
Pretty decent by what standards? Certainly not by modern estimations, and I think most people have a tendency to either overestimate the extent and quality of evidence, or simply project modern expectations of what they imagined constituted "Roman record keeping" backwards. Again, our sources are pretty sparse, and not just for the existence of Jesus, but for the daily activities of huge numbers of people and instances.
Right. But again, this should not come as any surprise, because most of our sources about everything in the Roman empire are sparse, and they do not really function like you seem to imagine that they should. We know that there were hundreds of so-called "mystery religions" throughout the empire, but we know virtually nothing about them. We know even less from Roman historians about the practices of mystery religions than we do about the presence of Christianity. Should we then become dubious about the existence of mystery religions?
It seems to me that you along with a number of mythicists are dismissing all the evidence in the Gospels and in Paul for the existence of Jesus, on the basis that they are agenda driven sources. That may very well be, but they are still our best sources for the life of Jesus, and they do in fact contain a good deal of historical information, even amid the clutter of propaganda and "mythicised" exaggerations. In this instance, I am using the word "myth" differently, to note that many of the stories we have about Jesus have been developed or even cut from whole cloth to express various theological ideas.
IF I'm reading the bolded parts correctly, we are to assume that there is no recorded info that is to be believed because the Christian sect meant so little to anyone at that time because they were insignificant and likely one of hundreds of religious sects...yet we are to believe what is written in the Gospels even though they are filled with clutter, propaganda and exaggerations? Isn't that apologetics? Isn't that a form of over estimation as well?
Maybe Emperor Constantine simply needed a control mechanism and Christianity was his best solution at the time?
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