Merged Topic - Historical Reliability of the Gospels

Started by Randy Carson, November 27, 2015, 11:31:44 AM

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Randy Carson

Quote from: Baruch on December 01, 2015, 12:48:03 PM
Correct ... Philo does mention the Logos.  So Johannine pre-Christian material was about ... in the early 1st century CE.  And the Pauline Christ is a similar mythical figure, as is the probable predecessor of the Gospel of John, and the non-Pauline Homily to the Hebrews figure of an eternal High Priest.  These all work together as Hellenized Jewish gnosticism, pre-Temple destruction ... and they work even better after the Temple was destroyed, since the question of Temple corruption has been superseded by the lack of any Temple at all.  So I see part of the NT, the gnostic part, including the Epistle of James ... as pre-Christian Jewish material.  The revised Gospel of John and the three Synoptics, with the Gospel of Mark being early Christian material of the late second century ... as content.  Again nothing is physically reliable before about 175 CE ... at least because the physical material hasn't survived.  The idea of the NT is initially imagined in the 2nd century and finalized toward the early 5th century, after Christianity becomes the only licit religion in the Empire.

Early dating of full Gospel material is speculative.  Not impossible, but choosing an early vs later date ... is less scholarly conservative (which always favors later dates).  Certainly the content, if not the physical remains, of part of the NT do date to the mid 1st century (including the Q or Greek Gospel of Thomas) ... but later ideological and political struggles have obscured what happened in favor of the victors telling the story.  I see the photo-Christian movement as Hellenistic Jewish Pacifist Messianic ... though some of the Dead Sea material is mythical militancy (apocalypse).  The latest I would date this material would be 135 CE ... because from that time all the militant Jewish messianics were dead.  Only the pacifist Jewish messianics remained, and their copy-cat Gentile god-fearer communities like Paul's.  Given that the reliable parts of Josephus only mention John the Baptist, and not a historical Jesus ... and that was written 70 - 100 CE ... I have doubts that a historical Jesus existed ... as there are also alternative explanations for the mention of the Christos followers in Tacitus (in regards to the Great Fire at Rome).  Followers even as early as Nero's time, just before the start of the Jewish wars ... do not demonstrate a historical figure ... as much as a mythical one.

Baruch-

Have you considered the arguments of agnostic scholar Bart Ehrman in his book Did Jesus Exist?
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

Randy Carson

Quote from: Baruch on December 01, 2015, 12:52:09 PM
Any Jewish ignorance would be clarified within a year after the destruction of Jerusalem ... in 70 CE.  The prophecy of the destruction of the Temple would have been current, in regards to King Herod having built it (and thus non-kosher for some) even before the Jewish revolt of 66 CE.  This wasn't a hard prediction to make.  And many a written prophesy is post-facto anyway.

I think we are in agreement. The authors of the NT WERE aware of the destruction of the Temple. However, by then, the gospels and Acts were already in circulation.

If not, the writers could have said, "See, Jesus predicted the Temple would be destroyed, and He was right."

But they didn't because it hadn't happened at the time of their writing.
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

Randy Carson

Quote from: widdershins on December 02, 2015, 12:37:05 PM

I just pointed out that neither of us is qualified to come to any such conclusions, so we, by necessity of being as accurate as possible, must cast aside our own wild assertions and beliefs and defer to the judgement of experts who have made careers out of exactly this study.  What I take issue with is the ignorant belief that with a week of Googling you are better qualified to date ancient manuscripts than people who have seen, studied and tested such manuscripts and are trained to understand what it all means.

You are not owed any answers by any experts.  Do you have degrees in ancient languages?  History?  Antiquities?  Have you seen, touched, studied and tested these documents?  Or are you just scouring the Internet, specifically web sites of people who say what you want to hear, and pulling your beliefs from there?  On the one hand we have a consensus of the vast majority of experts who have spent entire careers looking into this.  On the other hand we have you and Google searches specifically designed to get you, not the truth, but a boost to your argument.  Let's see, who should I trust here...

I'll pause to respond here.

Do I have these credentials? Of course not. But I've done a wee bit more than Google a few websites. And I can read Bart Ehrman who does have credentials. He wrote:

Quote"Serious historians of the early Christian movementâ€"all of themâ€"have spent many years preparing to be experts in their field. Just to read the ancient sources requires expertise in a range of ancient languages: Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and often Aramaic, Syriac, and Coptic, not to mention the modern languages of scholarship (for example, German and French). And that is just for starters. Expertise requires years of patiently examining ancient texts and a thorough grounding in the history and culture of Greek and Roman antiquity, the religions of the ancient Mediterranean world, both pagan and Jewish, knowledge of the history of the Christian church and the development of its social life and theology, and, well, lots of other things. It is striking that virtually everyone who has spent all the years needed to attain these qualifications is convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure. Again, this is not a piece of evidence, but if nothing else, it should give one pause. In the field of biology, evolution may be “just” a theory (as some politicians painfully point out), but it is the theory subscribed to, for good reason, by every real scientist in every established university in the Western world.

“Still, as is clear from the avalanche of sometimes outraged postings on all the relevant Internet sites, there is simply no way to convince conspiracy theorists that the evidence of their position is too thin to be convincing and that the evidence for the traditional view is thoroughly persuasive. Anyone who chooses to believe something contrary to evidence that an overwhelming majority of people find overwhelmingly convincingâ€"whether it involves the fact of the Holocaust, the landing on the moon, the assassination of Presidents, or even a presidential place of birthâ€"will not be convinced. Simply will [emphasis original] not be convinced.

“And so…I do not expect to convince anyone in that boat. What I do hope is to convince genuine seekers who really want to know how we know that Jesus did exist, as virtually every scholar of antiquity, of biblical studies, of classics, and of Christian origins in this country and, in the Western world agrees. Many of these scholars have no vested interest in the matter. As it turns out, I myself do not either. I am not a Christian, and I have no interest in promoting a Christian cause or a Christian agenda. I am an agnostic with atheist leanings, and my life and views of the world would be approximately the same whether or not Jesus existed. My beliefs would vary little. The answer to the question of Jesus’ historical existence will not make me more or less happy, content, hopeful, likable, rich, famous, or immortal.

“But as a historian, I think evidence matters. And the past matters. And for anyone to whom both evidence and the past matter, a dispassionate consideration of the case makes it quite plain: Jesus did exist. He may not have been the Jesus that you mother believes in or the Jesus of the stain-glass window or the Jesus of your least favorite televangelist or the Jesus proclaimed by the Vatican, the Southern Baptist Convention, the local megachurch, or the California Gnostic. But he did exist, and we can say a few things with relative certainty about him.” (Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist?, 5-6.)

So, who do you trust? I think the answer is obvious.

And Jesus did exist.
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

Randy Carson

Quote from: widdershins on December 02, 2015, 12:37:05 PM
If you read nothing else thoroughly, read this part.  My argument is not "You are wrong and here's why".  My argument is that your argument is pointless.  You can present all the "evidence" you want.  It won't change the absolute fact that these are your most hopeful beliefs, in opposition to a majority of experts who have studied this, and are extremely likely to not be based in any sort of reality or facts.  Already you're using terms like "could not have" to prove your point, with your first post.  This is not a Sherlock Holmes novel where all you have to do is eliminate things you don't like until you're left with the answer you want.  This is reality, where you look at the whole of the data and come to a conclusion regardless what you, personally, would like that conclusion to be.  They have analyzed linguistics, writing styles, papyrus and ink, the locations of the finds, history of the lands and multi-million dollar pieces of lab equipment.  They have gone on-side and studied and talked and dug.  They have examined history from every source even remotely close to the time frame.  They have done about a million and one things I could not even comprehend, much less imagine them doing.  The expert consensus gives us the dates based on ALL the evidence available, not just what Google or Christian apologetic sights tell you.  They have analyzed more points of data than you can imagine to come up with these numbers.  To think that you can shatter that with "Well, it COULD NOT HAVE been then because..." is just ignorant.  That's not an insult, it's just the bare truth.  Your argument is uninformed and unproductive.  You are wrong until you prove you're right.  But you don't prove you're right to me.  Because taking an argument directly to the people is another one of those ways (aside from argument from authority) that people with bad arguments propagate them.  You have to prove you're right to a majority of experts.  You have to get your answer to be the consensus answer.  Only then will you be "right".  Even if you are absolutely correct in everything you say, you are "wrong" until it is accepted by scientific consensus.  It's just how things work.  It's how science works.  And you can be damned sure it's how it will work here, where what we want is exactly the opposite of what you want.  Even if you argue your heart out and nobody can refute you you STILL would not convince a single person here.  Why?  Because we're not experts, so we will always "know" something is wrong with your argument, even if we don't know what that thing is, until a majority of experts tell use you were right.  It's not a perfect system, but it does work pretty damned well.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the timeline in the OP is not original with me. I read books, and I learn. Then I share what I have learned with others who haven't read.

You say that "conservative" scholarship points to dates in the AD 70 range for the gospels (gJohn later, the epistles probably much earlier). Great. That's what "conservatives" think. However, conservatives are, you know, conservative, and they go with dates that NO ONE could seriously disagree with - at least not the majority of their fellow scholars.

But others are just as reasonable in saying, "Well, hang on...my academic reputation may take a hit, but isn't it reasonable to ask a few questions such as why the destruction of the temple or the martydoms of James, Peter and Paul are NOT mentioned anywhere in the NT?"

And those questions need to be answered.

Either way, I don't see how this does the average atheist who denies that Jesus even existed and wants to place the authorship of the NT deep into the second century much good.

Do you?
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

stromboli

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/

QuoteA frail man sits in chains inside a dank, cold prison cell. He has escaped death before but now realizes that his execution is drawing near.

“I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come,” the man â€"the Apostle Paul - says in the Bible's 2 Timothy. “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.”

The passage is one of the most dramatic scenes in the New Testament. Paul, the most prolific New Testament author, is saying goodbye from a Roman prison cell before being beheaded. His goodbye veers from loneliness to defiance and, finally, to joy.

There’s one just one problem - Paul didn’t write those words. In fact, virtually half the New Testament was written by impostors taking on the names of apostles like Paul. At least according to Bart D. Ehrman, a renowned biblical scholar, who makes the charges in his new book “Forged.”

“There were a lot of people in the ancient world who thought that lying could serve a greater good,” says Ehrman, an expert on ancient biblical manuscripts.In “Forged,” Ehrman claims that:

* At least 11 of the 27 New Testament books are forgeries.


* The New Testament books attributed to Jesus’ disciples could not have been written by them because they were illiterate.

* Many of the New Testament’s forgeries were manufactured by early Christian leaders trying to settle theological feuds.

Were Jesus’ disciples ‘illiterate peasants?'

Ehrman’s book, like many of his previous ones, is already generating backlash. Ben Witherington, a New Testament scholar, has written a lengthy online critique of “Forged.”

Witherington calls Ehrman’s book “Gullible Travels, for it reveals over and over again the willingness of people to believe even outrageous things.”

All of the New Testament books, with the exception of 2 Peter, can be traced back to a very small group of literate Christians, some of whom were eyewitnesses to the lives of Jesus and Paul, Witherington says.

“Forged” also underestimates the considerable role scribes played in transcribing documents during the earliest days of Christianity, Witherington  says.

Even if Paul didn’t write the second book of Timothy, he would have dictated it to a scribe for posterity, he says.

“When you have a trusted colleague or co-worker who knows the mind of Paul, there was no problem in antiquity with that trusted co-worker hearing Paul’s last testimony in prison,” he says. “This is not forgery. This is the last will and testament of someone who is dying.”

Ehrman doesn’t confine his critique to Paul’s letters. He challenges the authenticity of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. He says that none were written by Jesus' disciplies, citing two reasons.

He says none of the earliest gospels revealed the names of its authors, and that their current names were later added by scribes.

Ehrman also says that two of Jesus’ original disciples, John and Peter, could not have written the books attributed to them in the New Testament because they were illiterate.

“According to Acts 4:13, both Peter and his companion John, also a fisherman, were agrammatoi, a Greek word that literally means ‘unlettered,’ that is, ‘illiterate,’ ’’ he writes.

Will the real Paul stand up?

Ehrman reserves most of his scrutiny for the writings of Paul, which make up the bulk of the New Testament. He says that only about half of the New Testament letters attributed to Paul - 7 of 13 - were actually written by him.


Paul's remaining books are forgeries
, Ehrman says. His proof: inconsistencies in the language, choice of words and blatant contradiction in doctrine.

For example, Ehrman says the book of Ephesians doesn’t conform to Paul’s distinctive Greek writing style. He says Paul wrote in short, pointed sentences while Ephesians is full of long Greek sentences (the opening sentence of thanksgiving in Ephesians unfurls a sentence that winds through 12 verses, he says).

“There’s nothing wrong with extremely long sentences in Greek; it just isn’t the way Paul wrote. It’s like Mark Twain and William Faulkner; they both wrote correctly, but you would never mistake the one for the other,” Ehrman writes.

The scholar also points to a famous passage in 1 Corinthians in which Paul is recorded as saying that women should be “silent” in churches and that “if they wish to learn anything, let them ask their own husbands at home.”

Only three chapters earlier, in the same book, Paul is urging women who pray and prophesy in church to cover their heads with veils, Ehrman says: “If they were allowed to speak in chapter 11, how could they be told not to speak in chapter 14?”

Why people forged

Forgers often did their work because they were trying to settle early church disputes, Ehrman says. The early church was embroiled in conflict - people argued over the treatment of women,  leadership and relations between masters and slaves, he says.

“There was competition among different groups of Christians about what to believe and each of these groups wanted to  have authority to back up their views,” he says. “If you were a nobody, you wouldn’t sign your own name to your treatise. You would sign Peter or John.”

So people claiming to be Peter and John - and all sorts of people who claimed to know Jesus - went into publishing overdrive. Ehrman estimates that there were about 100 forgeries created in the name of Jesus’ inner-circle during the first four centuries of the church.

Witherington concedes that fabrications and forgeries floated around the earliest Christian communities.

But he doesn’t accept the notion that Peter, for example, could not have been literate because he was a fisherman.

“Fisherman had to do business. Guess what? That involves writing, contracts and signed documents,” he said in an interview.

Witherington says people will gravitate toward Ehrman’s work because the media loves sensationalism.

“We live in a Jesus-haunted culture that’s biblically illiterate,” he says. “Almost anything can pass for historical information… A book liked ‘Forged’ can unsettle people who have no third or fourth opinions to draw upon.”

Ehrman, of course, has another point of view.

“Forged” will help people accept something that it took him a long time to accept, says the author, a former fundamentalist who is now an agnostic.

The New Testament wasn’t written by the finger of God, he says - it has human fingerprints all over its pages.

“I’m not saying people should throw it out or it’s not theologically fruitful,” Ehrman says. “I’m saying that by realizing it contains so many forgeries, it shows that it’s a very human book, down to the fact that some authors lied about who they were.”

He said, she said. Still comes back to irrefutable evidence of which I have seen none either way. We have had debates on here (among atheists, occasionally including theists) whether Jesus was a person or a myth; Historicism versus mythicism.

there is no conclusive evidence that I have seen or can be produced either way. But the real issue is whether Jesus was a divine being that fulfilled all of the needed requirements to be considered the ascendant son of man or the (supposedly prophesied) messiah. Regardless of any argument made, short of some divine evidence yet to be revealed, the Jesus of the bible does not meet that requirement. So you can continue the discussion, but lacking any specific information that definitively places Jesus not only as the redeemer but also as a real person, the discussion is in my mind a lot of hot air.

Randy Carson

Quote from: stromboli on January 17, 2016, 12:00:15 PM
http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/13/half-of-new-testament-forged-bible-scholar-says/


He said, she said. Still comes back to irrefutable evidence of which I have seen none either way. We have had debates on here (among atheists, occasionally including theists) whether Jesus was a person or a myth; Historicism versus mythicism.

there is no conclusive evidence that I have seen or can be produced either way. But the real issue is whether Jesus was a divine being that fulfilled all of the needed requirements to be considered the ascendant son of man or the (supposedly prophesied) messiah. Regardless of any argument made, short of some divine evidence yet to be revealed, the Jesus of the bible does not meet that requirement. So you can continue the discussion, but lacking any specific information that definitively places Jesus not only as the redeemer but also as a real person, the discussion is in my mind a lot of hot air.

And yet for all that, Ehrman is really clear that Jesus was a real person.

Now that we have that settled, we can begin with the rest.
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

stromboli

Quote from: Randy Carson on January 17, 2016, 12:13:55 PM
And yet for all that, Ehrman is really clear that Jesus was a real person.

Now that we have that settled, we can begin with the rest.

And we haven't settled anything. Ehrman is one source. Other sources disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory#21st_century

QuoteRichard Carrier, New Atheism activist and proponent of the Jesus myth theory wrote a scathing review of Bart D. Ehrman's book Did Jesus Exist in 2012 resulted in lengthy responses and counter-responses on the Internet. Carrier holds the view that it is more likely that the earliest Christians considered Jesus to be a celestial being known only through revelations rather than a real person.[122] In 2014 Carrier released a book, On the Historicity of Jesus, where he gave a probabilistic estimate that Jesus was a historical figure: "With the evidence we have, the probability Jesus existed is somewhere between 1 in 12,500 and 1 in 3".

QuoteCanadian writer Earl Doherty wrote in 2009 that the Christ myth theory is "the theory that no historical Jesus worthy of the name existed, that Christianity began with a belief in a spiritual, mythical figure, that the Gospels are essentially allegory and fiction, and that no single identifiable person lay at the root of the Galilean preaching tradition."[123][124] Doherty argues in The Jesus Puzzle (2005) and Jesus: Neither God nor Manâ€"The Case for a Mythical Jesus (2009) that Jesus originated as a myth derived from Middle Platonism with some influence from Jewish mysticism, and that belief in a historical Jesus emerged only among Christian communities in the 2nd century.

According to Doherty, none of the major Christian apologists before 180 AD, except for Justin and Aristides of Athens, included an account of a historical Jesus in their defenses of Christianity. Instead Doherty suggests that the early Christian writers describe a Christian movement grounded in Platonic philosophy and Hellenistic Judaism, reaching the worship of a monotheistic Jewish god and what he calls a "logos-type Son". Doherty further argues that Theophilus of Antioch (c. 163â€"182), Athenagoras of Athens (c. 133â€"190), Tatian the Assyrian (c. 120â€"180), and Marcus Minucius Felix (writing around 150â€"270) offer no indication that they believed in a historical figure crucified and resurrected, and that the name Jesus does not appear in any of them.[125]

QuoteAmerican New Testament scholar and former Baptist pastor Robert McNair Price was a fellow of the Jesus Seminar, a group of writers and scholars who study the historicity of Jesus and who argue that the Christian image of Christ is a theological construct into which traces of Jesus of Nazareth have been woven.[127] He was also a member of the Jesus Project. Price believes that Christianity is a historicized synthesis of mainly Egyptian, Jewish, and Greek mythologies.[128]

Price questioned the historicity of Jesus in a series of books, including Deconstructing Jesus (2000), The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man (2003), Jesus Is Dead (2007), and The Christ-Myth Theory and Its Problems (2012), as well as in contributions to The Historical Jesus: Five Views (2009). He writes that everyone who espouses the Christ myth theory bases their arguments on three key points:

There is no mention of a miracle-working Jesus in secular sources.
The epistles, written earlier than the gospels, provide no evidence of a recent historical Jesus; all that can be taken from the epistles, Price argues, is that a Jesus Christ, son of God, lived in a heavenly realm (much as other ancient gods, e.g. Horus), there died as a sacrifice for human sin, was raised by God and enthroned in heaven.
The Jesus narrative is paralleled in Middle Eastern myths about dying and rising gods; Price names Baal, Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dumuzi/Tammuz as examples, all of which, he writes, survived into the Hellenistic and Roman periods and thereby influenced early Christianity. Price alleges that Christian apologists have tried to minimize these parallels.[129]
Price argues that if critical methodology is applied with ruthless consistency, one is left in complete agnosticism regarding Jesus's historicity: "There might have been a historical Jesus, but unless someone discovers his diary or his skeleton, we'll never know."[126] Price argues that "the varying dates are the residue of various attempts to anchor an originally mythic or legendary Jesus in more or less recent history" citing accounts that have Jesus being crucified under Alexander Jannaeus (83 BCE) or in his 50s by Herod Agrippa I under the rule of Claudius Caesar (41â€"54 CE

Sorry, but it is still he said she said.  As Price contends, until someone discovers a skeleton or a diary, there is no definitive proof of Jesus as a historical figure.

The parallels with other mythical figures like Apollo, Romulus of Roman myth or others- and there are many parallels- to make the specific statement that Jesus is first a historical figure and secondly a divine one that fulfills prophecy and is actually what Christians claim is not likely.

Note that I said Christians claim, not the Bible. There are so many apocryphal texts and different interpretations of currently accepted scripture, including whether or not Christ actually was a product of virgin birth, that to adamantly claim that he was both divine and a historical figure is also not likely.

Baruch

#22
Ehrman or any other scholar ... is just another infallible Pope.  Not my game at all.  In my case the historicity of Jesus, like that of Moses, is irrelevant.  But I wanted to give you a serious reply in context ... because I like you ;-)  An original Age of Faith is as mythical is it gets.

I think that Paul the Apostle is clearly historical, for what it is worth.  And his writing precede the Gospels, and forth-tell a different Christ than that of the Gospels ... a cosmic figure rather than a human figure.  Clearly gnostic in theology.  I also think that John the Baptist is clearly legendary.  The Jesus of the Gospels on the other hand is clearly mythical.  On what standard?  We have Paul's actual writings, somewhat edited, with later material mis-ascribed ... but the genuine Pauline corpus has a consistent language and theology, and is written in first person.  John the Baptist didn't write anything that has survived, but no miracles, aside from Jesus' baptism, is part of his story. Jesus wrote nothing himself, like John the Baptist.  A story that also has many miracles in it ... is mythical by nature.  So much of the Jesus' ministry story is like Hercules/Bacchus, Socrates et al.  Random folk rabbis executed for sedition .. do not a religion make.

Substitutionary atonement doesn't exist in the first version of Mark, but was added later to make it consistent with Matthew/Luke.  John's Gospel was gnostic in inspiration (plays better with Paul than the Synoptics), but written to compete with the Synoptics.  The pre-Gospel material, the Gospel of Thomas, is not a narrative, is gnostic in intent just like Paul.  The conversion on the road to Damascus ... is the mythical part of the Pauline story.  The substitutionary atonement of Paul's writings is clearly a burlesque of normative Jewish Temple worship, recalling Canaanite practices and Ba'al.  Real early Messianic Judaism is present in The Didache, but which was carefully left out of the NT.

So on to the timeline ... there can be multiple plausible timelines.  Some material dating back to the Teacher of Righteousness who created the Essene movement around 150 BCE, to post-Jerusalem destruction material as late as 135 CE.  Almost a 300 year span.  The actual manuscripts, in near intact condition date from the 200-350 CE time period ... that is the latest, not the earliest plausible timeline.  The earliest timeline would correspond to a versions of Eisenman's theories, but put farther back in time to the Maccabean period.  In no way, regardless of which timeline one chooses, would I be convinced that the final version of the NT is anything but an instrument of Late Roman politics.  The origins will remain uncertain no matter what other papyri are found, because papyri have been found for over 200 years, without effect on Christian theology.  The Constantine version of the Pauline foundation story, cannot be examined.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

josephpalazzo

I'm surprised that the Son of God did not write a book in a format that would have survived 2000 years. Clearly, he must have been too distracted by Magdalene...

stromboli

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PM
Ehrman or any other scholar ... is just another infallible Pope.  Not my game at all.  In my case the historicity of Jesus, like that of Moses, is irrelevant.  But I wanted to give you a serious reply in context ... because I like you ;-)  An original Age of Faith as as mythical is it gets.

I think that Paul the Apostle is clearly historical, for what it is worth.  And his writing precede the Gospels, and forth-tell a different Christ than that of the Gospels ... a cosmic figure rather than a human figure.  Clearly gnostic in theology.  I also think that John the Baptist is clearly legendary.  The Jesus of the Gospels on the other hand is clearly mythical.  On what standard?  We have Paul's actual writings, somewhat edited, with later material mis-ascribed ... but the genuine Pauline corpus has a consistent language and theology, and is written in first person.  John the Baptist didn't write anything that has survived, but no miracles, aside from Jesus' baptism, is part of his story. Jesus wrote nothing himself, like John the Baptist.  A story that also has many miracles in it ... is mythical by nature.  So much of the Jesus' ministry story is like Hercules/Bacchus, Socrates et al.  Random folk rabbis executed for sedition .. do not a religion make.

Substitutionary atonement doesn't exist in the first version of Mark, but was added later to make it consistent with Matthew/Luke.  John's Gospel was gnostic in inspiration (plays better with Paul than the Synoptics), but written to compete with the Synoptics.  The pre-Gospel material, the Gospel of Thomas, is not a narrative, is gnostic in intent just like Paul.  The conversion on the road to Damascus ... is the mythical part of the Pauline story.  The substitutionary atonement of Paul's writings is clearly a burlesque of normative Jewish Temple worship, recalling Canaanite practices and Ba'al.  Real early Messianic Judaism is present in The Didache, but which was carefully left out of the NT.

So on to the timeline ... there can be multiple plausible timelines.  Some material dating back to the Teacher of Righteousness who created the Essene movement around 150 BCE, to post-Jerusalem destruction material as late as 135 CE.  Almost a 300 year span.  The actual manuscripts, in near intact condition date from the 200-350 CE time period ... that is the latest, not the earliest plausible timeline.  The earliest timeline would correspond to a versions of Eisenman's theories, but put farther back in time to the Maccabean period.  In no way, regardless of which timeline one chooses, would I be convinced that the final version of the NT is anything but an instrument of Late Roman politics.  The origins will remain uncertain no matter what other papyri are found, because papyri have been found for over 200 years, without effect on Christian theology.  The Constantine version of the Pauline foundation story, cannot be examined.

Holy shit Baruch, I actually agree with that.  :a102:

I agree that Paul is a historical figure. Sidestepping needless comments to the rest of it, there is one aspect that ought to be taken into consideration, and that is the goal and/or agenda of the historians themselves. This subject has been debated on here a few times, and we tend to make the assumption that historians are scrupulously objective, which sadly isn't always the case. I respect Ehrman and Carrier for their credentials, but when two otherwise objective scholars can come up with different conclusions, the objectivity comes into question. This debate, as indicated in the Wikipedia article I previously cited, dates all the way back to 18th century France. My conclusion, with every one of these debates, is the same; he said, she said and no certain conlcusion will ever be arrived at. That said, I'm done.

Baruch

The scholarly evidence today is pretty clear (outside of theology, which by its nature is biased).  And I do respect Paul as a historical personage ... who got a few things wrong, given that he died before the destruction of Jerusalem, the wholesale move of Christianity from Jewish to Gentile form, and the adoption of one version (out of many) as the official doctrine of the Roman Empire.    We don't have many personal documents from ancient times to go by.  Certainly the worldwide destruction didn't come ... shortly ... and still hasn't come.  It may yet come, but given tardiness, I don't think Paul will have predicted it.
Ha’át’íísh baa naniná?
Azee’ Å,a’ish nanídį́į́h?
Táadoo ánít’iní.
What are you doing?
Are you taking any medications?
Don't do that.

josephpalazzo

The earliest hard copy of the gospel dates at about 125 CE. It's approximately the size of a credit card. It's identified as Mark's gospel due to some sentences and the style of writing that conforms with Mark. There are thousands of these fragments of the gospels, but the earliest hard copy of a manuscript in its fullness dates around the 3rd century CE. The Codex Sinaiticus dates back to the 4th century, but remembered it was written in Greek. Comparing different manuscripts of different eras indicates that copying these manuscripts often involved errors: typo errors, confusing in the translation as a word in a language can have several interpretations, transpositions of words, insertions that didn't belong in earlier manuscripts, conflating that is if they were different descriptions of a single events, the copier would often conflate these different descriptions... to name a few of these errors. The idea that the NT is God's words is as ludicrous as saying that Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey are real descriptions of Zeus and the other Greek gods and their stakes in human affairs.

Randy Carson

Quote from: stromboli on January 17, 2016, 12:58:43 PM
And we haven't settled anything. Ehrman is one source. Other sources disagree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth_theory#21st_century

Sorry, but it is still he said she said.  As Price contends, until someone discovers a skeleton or a diary, there is no definitive proof of Jesus as a historical figure.

The parallels with other mythical figures like Apollo, Romulus of Roman myth or others- and there are many parallels- to make the specific statement that Jesus is first a historical figure and secondly a divine one that fulfills prophecy and is actually what Christians claim is not likely.

Note that I said Christians claim, not the Bible. There are so many apocryphal texts and different interpretations of currently accepted scripture, including whether or not Christ actually was a product of virgin birth, that to adamantly claim that he was both divine and a historical figure is also not likely.

Skeleton?



Perhaps you're not familiar with the rest of the story of Jesus?
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

Randy Carson

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PM
Ehrman or any other scholar ... is just another infallible Pope.  Not my game at all.  In my case the historicity of Jesus, like that of Moses, is irrelevant.  But I wanted to give you a serious reply in context ... because I like you ;-)  An original Age of Faith is as mythical is it gets.

I think that Paul the Apostle is clearly historical, for what it is worth.  And his writing precede the Gospels, and forth-tell a different Christ than that of the Gospels ... a cosmic figure rather than a human figure.  Clearly gnostic in theology.  I also think that John the Baptist is clearly legendary.  The Jesus of the Gospels on the other hand is clearly mythical.  On what standard?  We have Paul's actual writings, somewhat edited, with later material mis-ascribed ... but the genuine Pauline corpus has a consistent language and theology, and is written in first person.  John the Baptist didn't write anything that has survived, but no miracles, aside from Jesus' baptism, is part of his story. Jesus wrote nothing himself, like John the Baptist. 

Jesus and John did not write anything. So what? I'm not sure what this proves. The literacy rate of the area and time was not very high.

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMA story that also has many miracles in it ... is mythical by nature.  So much of the Jesus' ministry story is like Hercules/Bacchus, Socrates et al.  Random folk rabbis executed for sedition .. do not a religion make.

That's kind of pre-suppositional, isn't it? Oh, it has miracles? Well, then it has to be mythical.

Really? Why? Because miracles don't happen?

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMSubstitutionary atonement doesn't exist in the first version of Mark, but was added later to make it consistent with Matthew/Luke. 

Be specific. Are you referencing the second ending of Mark, or do you have something else in mind?

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMJohn's Gospel was gnostic in inspiration (plays better with Paul than the Synoptics), but written to compete with the Synoptics.  The pre-Gospel material, the Gospel of Thomas, is not a narrative, is gnostic in intent just like Paul. 

Ehrman identifies gThomas as legitimate evidence for the historical Jesus, but the Church never accepted it as inspired.

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMThe conversion on the road to Damascus ... is the mythical part of the Pauline story. 

This is just an assertion...unless you care to provide some support.

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMThe substitutionary atonement of Paul's writings is clearly a burlesque of normative Jewish Temple worship, recalling Canaanite practices and Ba'al.  Real early Messianic Judaism is present in The Didache, but which was carefully left out of the NT.

The Didache was written AFTER the canonical books and it clearly supports many early Christian beliefs which are still present in Catholic and Orthodox practice. But is it really a problem that Paul, the most theologically trained of the apostles, would fill out the basics of the atonement? The doctrine of the Church developed over time based upon the revelation received, but not completely understood, by the early Church.

Quote from: Baruch on January 17, 2016, 01:14:44 PMSo on to the timeline ... there can be multiple plausible timelines.  Some material dating back to the Teacher of Righteousness who created the Essene movement around 150 BCE, to post-Jerusalem destruction material as late as 135 CE.  Almost a 300 year span.  The actual manuscripts, in near intact condition date from the 200-350 CE time period ... that is the latest, not the earliest plausible timeline.  The earliest timeline would correspond to a versions of Eisenman's theories, but put farther back in time to the Maccabean period.  In no way, regardless of which timeline one chooses, would I be convinced that the final version of the NT is anything but an instrument of Late Roman politics.  The origins will remain uncertain no matter what other papyri are found, because papyri have been found for over 200 years, without effect on Christian theology.  The Constantine version of the Pauline foundation story, cannot be examined.

Since the NT can be completely re-constructed from the writings of the Early Church Fathers (many of whom pre-date the "late Roman" period, I presume), it is unlikely that the "final version of the NT" was an instrument of "politics". Here, I'm referring to the individual books and epistles.

But are you referring to the canon itself?
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.

Randy Carson

Quote from: stromboli on January 17, 2016, 07:44:23 PM
Holy shit Baruch, I actually agree with that.  :a102:

I agree that Paul is a historical figure. Sidestepping needless comments to the rest of it, there is one aspect that ought to be taken into consideration, and that is the goal and/or agenda of the historians themselves. This subject has been debated on here a few times, and we tend to make the assumption that historians are scrupulously objective, which sadly isn't always the case. I respect Ehrman and Carrier for their credentials, but when two otherwise objective scholars can come up with different conclusions, the objectivity comes into question. This debate, as indicated in the Wikipedia article I previously cited, dates all the way back to 18th century France. My conclusion, with every one of these debates, is the same; he said, she said and no certain conlcusion will ever be arrived at. That said, I'm done.

Technically, Ehrman, an agnostic, is simply arguing the mainstream view that Jesus was a historical person.

Carrier is the one out of step, and it is HIS objectivity that I would question - especially in light of all the evidence that supports a non-mythical view.
Some barrels contain fish that need to be shot.