Why didn't Jesus write a book?

[Colanth]

Warning - long, serious post, filled with things that have to be thought about.

There seems to be a general consensus that because the authors of the gospels were decidedly pro-Jesus, everything they say must be discounted as historically unreliable.

Not at all.  Anything in the Bible that's backed up by historical sources, archaeology, etc., is considered true.

But the fact that a book says something IS NOT AND CAN NOT BE evidence that what it says is true.  Any book.  Even one that claims it's the words of a supernatural god.  (Unless there's evidence that has nothing to do with that book that backs up the claim.)

Because they had an agenda, we cannot trust anything they say; we cannot pick out probabilities or likelihoods from their words; we cannot critically analyze them.

That's not how verification of a claim is done.  Critical analysis is used as a disproof, not as a proof.  If the text is ludicrous on its face it's dismissed.  Otherwise it's accepted as an assertion - but it can't be used to prove itself true.

We should not even bother doing so

No more than we should bother doing so with every religious and fantastical assertion.  How many years have you spent picking out probabilities or likelihoods from the words of the writers of the Hindu claims?  (Their claims are as important to us as Christian claims are - not at all.)

as anyone with eyes can see, they are filled with falsehoods

They are, right from the start. The universe didn't start the way the Bible claims it did.  The human species didn't start with one man and one woman.  There was no a world-wide flood since hominids came to be.  Etc., etc.

Not only are there no gods

Never has been any objective evidence that any has objectively existed.  Never has been any need for one to explain anything.  ("God did it" and "God works in mysterious ways" aren't explanations, they're different [and dishonest] ways of saying "we don't know".)

but people to whom divine attributes were attached cannot have existed as humans to begin with.

We know that the sky-godlet myths didn't start that way. Why should the Jesus sky-godlet myth be any different?  Anyone who claims that it is bears the burden of proof.

Not only does the universe follow natural laws with no divine intervention

1) Do you understand what "natural law" means?  ("Law" isn't being used in the same sense it is in "traffic law", it means "observation".)

2) There's never been any objective evidence of any divine intervention.

but anyone claiming otherwise is not only wrong in their claims of divinity, but is lying about everything they say, ever.

Anyone who knows so little that he claims divine intervention isn't someone whose words should be accepted without proof.  There's a slight difference.

Ehrman discusses the criteria historians use to determine the likelihood of historical events based on available texts.

That's not history, that's apologia.  Historians study events to determine whether claims are true, they don't rely on the claims themselves.  So yes, he is an apologist, in a way.  Take a couple of very simple Biblical claims - the Flood and the Exodus.  The Flood story in the Bible is impossible (physically).  The Hebrews who "invaded" Canaan and "defeated" the Canaanites?  They WERE the Canaanites.  They lived in Canaan before the supposed Exodus.  (Canaan was under Egyptian suzerainty, so you don't "escape" from Egypt to Canaan, any more than you "escape" from the US to Alaska.  (Oh, and those Hebrews were polytheists at the time.)  All that is from archaeological findings, so that trumps some old book of assertions.

So regardless of any "criteria" that show these myths to be true (or even possible), they're dismissed as myth.

They are more or less common sense (well, I think so), and I hope we, like the grand majority of historians, will be able to agree on their validity.

The great majority of historians agree that the Bible is mostly fable.  The great majority of those who claim that the Bible is true aren't historians, but apologists.

The Criterion of Independent Attestation

"In any court trial, it is better to have a number of witnesses who can provide consistent testimony than to have only one

But when you have physical evidence that shows that ALL the witnesses are wrong, you rely on the evidence and ignore the testimony.

And that's the case with the Bible.  In any case in which we have physical evidence, it contradicts all the assertions.  (And we have absolutely NO eye-witnesses in the Bible - it's all hearsay, which is inadmissible in a court of law, so this argument is incompetent and irrelevant.  The entire first 5 books of the OT, supposedly written by "Moses"?  Moses, in ancient Egyptian means "son of".  Tutmoses - son of Tut.  Ramoses [not Ramses] - son of Ra.  Moses - son of whom?  Of no one.  It was a name made up by a people that didn't speak Egyptian.  Like most of both the OT and the NT, there are errors introduced because the writers knew nothing about the times they were writing about.)

especially if we can show the witnesses did not confer with one another to get their story straight.

As I said, there were no "witnesses".  The NT was written no sooner than 70 CE (and most likely not before about 100 CE).  Anyone who was about 20 when Jesus had his ministry would be 60 by then - when the average age at death for men was about 50.  Anyone still mentally vigorous in 70 CE would be too young to have understood what was going on in 30-33 CE.  And Luke clearly states that it's a retelling of what others have said, so you can't show that it's independent - it claims to not be.

(And how do we have witnesses to what Jesus was thinking?  The Gospels were written by telepathic aliens?)

(Mentions about witnesses deleted, since there were none.)

The Criterion of Dissimilarity

"The most controversial criterion that historians use, and often misuse, to establish authentic tradition from the life of Jesus is commonly called the 'criterion of dissimilarity.'  It too can be explained by analogy to a legal trial.  Any witness in a court of law

Again, since there were no actual witnesses in the Bible, <massive snip>

"How can we know which stories were made up and which ones are historically accurate?

By looking for actual historical evidence to back up the stories.

Oops.  EVERY SINGLE actual historical fact we have says that the stories in the Bible are fiction.  So scratch "historically accurate".

The surest way is to determine the sorts of things Christians were saying about Jesus in other sources and then ascertain whether the stories told about his sayings and deeds clearly support these Christian views.

Hello?  Did you read what you wrote?  Are you a Poe?  Or do you actually believe that nonsense?  The way to prove the historical accuracy of a claim is to see whether it fits with the beliefs of people who believe it?  So if kids believe that Washington actually chopped down a cherry tree, then couldn't lie about it, it actually happened, because the story clearly supports their belief?  And you're trying to convince people who have all at least graduated from 6th grade?

If they do, then there is at least a theoretical possibility that these sayings and deeds were made up to advance the views that some Christians held dear."

Or that they're completely false.  Or that they're completely true.

The fact that a claim perfectly fits with later beliefs about that claim has ABSOLUTELY NOT A SINGLE THING to do with the validity of that claim.

The Criterion of Contextual Credibility

"For the testimony of a witness in a court of law

Again - THERE ARE NO EYE-WITNESS ACCOUNTS OF JESUS!

These are the criterion I use when I consider ancient texts.

1) It's "criteria" - "these" is plural, "criterion" is singular.

2) I can't tell from context (and quotation marks) whether you're quoting Ehrman all through here, or whether this is all your words, or it's some admixture of both.  But unless you can read the ancient texts in their original form (Hieroglyphics, ancient Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc.), your "consideration" is worthless.  All you're "Considering" is the translator's opinion.  And, since almost all the translations of the Bible you're likely to be "considering" were written by Christian apologists, you're "considering" a "Bible" that's been modified to be more acceptable (as far as verification) than the original.

From what I can tell they are logical and reasonable, and they account for agendas and biases inherent in any ancient author.

Really!  Have you read the authentic letters of Paul.  (It's generally accepted that not all of them are authentic.)  Paul speaks of a Jesus living in Heaven, not one living on Earth.  Everything he knows about "Jesus" is either something "Jesus" revealed to him personally (but, since "Jesus" was never here on Earth, and he doesn't tell us how that was done, we have to assume he made it up) or something he takes from scripture (which, at the time, meant the OT - WHICH HAD ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH JESUS, regardless of Christian claims that they know the Jewish Bible better than the Jews did 400 years after they wrote it).

What's more, and is particularly relevant to our conversation, they can be applied to all ancient texts

When facts contradict ancient texts, the texts are accepted as myth.  And that's the case here - all known facts contradict the claims in the Bible.

It may be that you do, in fact, disagree with the use of these criteria for our examination of ancient texts.

Not if you're speaking as a Christian apologists, since those "criteria" are the criteria of apologia.

If you're trying to speak as an historian, you first have to learn the language of historicity - a language you've demonstrated that you know absolutely nothing of, if you even know that it exists.

Before we continue, though, I need to know whether you're willing to accept these criteria.

As apologia, yes.

If not, why not, and what would you use instead?

We use history to determine historical accuracy.  And science to determine scientific accuracy.  Using textual analysis to determine the accuracy of texts isn't either, it's apologia.

So, if you want to present Christian apologia, continue as you have (not that many here will be interested in doing much more than showing the historical or scientific invalidity of your claims).  If you wish to engage in discussion of the actual accuracy of the Bible, use the appropriate means - history to show historical accuracy (and that means archaeology where available, proven historical fact otherwise) and science to show scientific accuracy (like where did all the water for the Flood come from [and go to] and where did all the coprolites from the Exodus go).

We don't start with "the Bible is correct" and accept that until there's evidence that it's not.  We start with "the Bible is an assertion" and wait for evidence - actual objective evidence - that its claims are true.  If you're arguing from any other basis, you're in the wrong place.  (And if you can't accept actual evidence that an assertion in the Bible is false, without trying to find a loophole, you're going to be spitting into a hurricane that just passed over a gravel pit.)

[josephpalazzo]

When you consider the works of Finkelstein, Silberman, Herzog, and many other noted archaeologists who have come to the conclusion that the Exodus never happened, that the Israelites never conquered the Canaanites, you can only take the bible with a grain of salt.

[Colanth]

I prefer taking it with a grain of sand - salt has value.

[DerpinDots]

But that would be, you know, somewhat useful evidence.... No no much better to have stories be recorded a few decades after the events supposedly took place.

[Dreamer]

Why would Jesus have wanted a book for people to obsess over?  His message was pretty simple:  Be good to each other, take care of each other, give your stuff away, etc.  It all had the same theme, and if Christians paid attention to the theme instead of obsessing over words written eons ago and translated and mistranslated repeatedly---what a different world we could live in.

[Colanth]

But that would be, you know, somewhat useful evidence.... No no much better to have stories be recorded a [s:d183f3ph]few decades[/s:d183f3ph] century or two after the events supposedly took place.

FIFY

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I kinda stole this for a thread at JREF. It's been fun over there. One guy, a believer, said that even if Jesus did write a book it probably wouldn't have made the cut at the enclave that selected the books of the NT. That's just so awesome to me, JC froze out of his own book because his word wouldn't fit the dogma. That's Christianity for you.

[josephpalazzo]

I kinda stole this for a thread at JREF. It's been fun over there. One guy, a believer, said that even if Jesus did write a book it probably wouldn't have made the cut at the enclave that selected the books of the NT. That's just so awesome to me, JC froze out of his own book because his word wouldn't fit the dogma. That's Christianity for you.

Why am I not surprised?!?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I kinda stole this for a thread at JREF. It's been fun over there. One guy, a believer, said that even if Jesus did write a book it probably wouldn't have made the cut at the enclave that selected the books of the NT. That's just so awesome to me, JC froze out of his own book because his word wouldn't fit the dogma. That's Christianity for you.

Why am I not surprised?!?

TBH the guy sounds like he's Jesuit-trained to me, incapable of a straight, to the point answer, or of answering questions with answers related to same.

[Colanth]

I kinda stole this for a thread at JREF. It's been fun over there. One guy, a believer, said that even if Jesus did write a book it probably wouldn't have made the cut at the enclave that selected the books of the NT. That's just so awesome to me, JC froze out of his own book because his word wouldn't fit the dogma. That's Christianity for you.

Reminds me of a fundy who told me that God is so powerful that he could have created the universe even if he didn't exist.  If there's such a thing as in intelligence vacuum, it has to be religion.

[ApostateLois]

Concerning Jesus, historians/scholars/classicists mostly agree on a few things:  

He existed.  
He lived in the outskirts of the Roman Empire, in Palestine.  
He was a carpenter.  
He was a Jew.  
He was an apocalyptic prophet.  
He had a large following.  
He made the Jewish establishment (particularly the Pharisees, who were popular and many) angry.  
He was executed by being nailed to a cross on the orders of the local Roman governor.  

I don't think most historians and scholars are agreed on those things at all, especially the first one. They do agree that there were lots of homeless, illiterate, crazy guys going around preaching an end-times message of repentance and redemption, and that the Jesus of the Bible probably was based on more than one of those guys. But to say that a character is based on a real-life person--or more than one person--is not the same as saying that the character, himself, was a real person. Maybe Harry Potter's personality and appearance were based on some kid that the author once knew in grade school; that doesn't make Harry Potter a real kid.

The Romans didn't crucify people for being a nuisance to the Jewish establishment. Why would they have cared about Jewish laws? What they did crucify people for were piracy and treason; so if some itinerant Jewish preacher WAS ever crucified, it would have been for stirring up rebellion against the Roman government. Indeed, we see shades of this in a few verses, where Jesus urges his followers to sell their possessions and acquire swords. Such actions surely would have got the attention of the Roman authorities, who wouldn't have taken it lightly, especially if Jesus (or the person(s) on which he was based) had a large following.

[Colanth]

Concerning Jesus, historians/scholars/classicists mostly agree on a few things:  

He existed.  
He lived in the outskirts of the Roman Empire, in Palestine.  
He was a carpenter.  
He was a Jew.  
He was an apocalyptic prophet.  
He had a large following.  
He made the Jewish establishment (particularly the Pharisees, who were popular and many) angry.  
He was executed by being nailed to a cross on the orders of the local Roman governor.  

I don't think most historians and scholars are agreed on those things at all, especially the first one.

Many scholars still are, sadly.

the Jesus of the Bible probably was based on more than one of those guys.

Read Paul.  Jesus lived in the seventh heaven.  (So he wasn't a real guy, he was a spirit.)  He "told" Paul things.  Today we call hearing voices "schizophrenia" (or fraud).  The Jesus who was a man wasn't invented until much later.  (The earliest manuscript we have that mentions a Jesus in human form here on Earth dates from 187 CE.)  It's as if someone in 2100 writes about some "real" Harry Potter. And people in 4000 use that as "proof" that Harry was a real person.

[WitchSabrina]

the Jesus of the Bible probably was based on more than one of those guys.

Read Paul.  Jesus lived in the seventh heaven.  (So he wasn't a real guy, he was a spirit.)  He "told" Paul things.  Today we call hearing voices "schizophrenia" (or fraud).  The Jesus who was a man wasn't invented until much later.  (The earliest manuscript we have that mentions a Jesus in human form here on Earth dates from 187 CE.)  It's as if someone in 2100 writes about some "real" Harry Potter. And people in 4000 use that as "proof" that Harry was a real person.

You mean Harry Potter isn't real?







I'm crushed.  My day is ruined.  Ruined I tell you.

Damn you ScoobaSteve  (points if you know who ScoobaSteve is)

[Colanth]

the Jesus of the Bible probably was based on more than one of those guys.

Read Paul.  Jesus lived in the seventh heaven.  (So he wasn't a real guy, he was a spirit.)  He "told" Paul things.  Today we call hearing voices "schizophrenia" (or fraud).  The Jesus who was a man wasn't invented until much later.  (The earliest manuscript we have that mentions a Jesus in human form here on Earth dates from 187 CE.)  It's as if someone in 2100 writes about some "real" Harry Potter. And people in 4000 use that as "proof" that Harry was a real person.

You mean Harry Potter isn't real?







I'm crushed.  My day is ruined.  Ruined I tell you.
[ Image ]

Sorry, Bri - you weren't supposed to see that.

[josephpalazzo]

You mean Harry Potter isn't real?
I'm crushed.  My day is ruined.  Ruined I tell you.
[ Image ]

Sorry, Bri - you weren't supposed to see that.

Liar.

 :P