On a recent blog post, conversation turned toward the reliability of the New Testament, and more specifically, how much evidence we have for whether or not Jesus ever existed. Instead of continuing the discussion there (since it had already broken the 500th comment mark and this would have taken the conversation in a different direction), I thought it might be a good idea to do it here. Makes it easier for other people to find.
So without further ado, here are the three main comments that kicked it off. Feel free to add additional comments below.
UnkleE:
Hi kcchief1, it’s impossible ion a blog comment to do justice you your question, so I’ll give you a few quotes and some references.
EP Sanders, possibly the most respected NT scholar of the last few decades:
“Historical reconstruction is never absolutely certain, and in the case of Jesus it is sometimes highly uncertain. Despite this, we have a good idea of the main lines of his ministry and his message. We know who he was, what he did, what he taught, and why he died. ….. the dominant view [among scholars] today seems to be that we can know pretty well what Jesus was out to accomplish, that we can know a lot about what he said, and that those two things make sense within the world of first-century Judaism.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p281)“I shall first offer a list of statements about Jesus that meet two standards: they are almost beyond dispute; and they belong to the framework of his life, and especially of his public career. (A list of everything that we know about Jesus would be appreciably longer.)
Jesus was born c 4 BCE near the time of the death of Herod the Great;
he spent his childhood and early adult years in Nazareth, a Galilean village;
he was baptised by John the Baptist;
he called disciples;
he taught in the towns, villages and countryside of Galilee (apparently not the cities);
he preached ‘the kingdom of God’;
about the year 30 he went to Jerusalem for Passover;
he created a disturbance in the Temple area;
he had a final meal with the disciples;
he was arrested and interrogated by Jewish authorities, specifically the high priest;
he was executed on the orders of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p10-11)“I think we can be fairly certain that initially Jesus’ fame came as a result of healing, especially exorcism.”
(from The Historical Figure of Jesus, p154)Maurice Casey:
“[Mark’s] sources, though abbreviated, were literally accurate accounts of incidents and sayings from the life and teaching of Jesus. …. The completed Gospels of Matthew and Luke are also important sources for the life and teachings of Jesus ….Some of his [Matthew’s] special material … shows every sign of being authentic material literally and accurately translated from Aramaic sources.”
(from Jesus of Nazareth, p 97-99)Classical historian, Michael Grant:
“The consistency, therefore, of the tradition in their [the Gospels’] pages suggests that the picture they present is largely authentic.”
(From Jesus: an historian’s review of the gospels, p 202)Craig Evans:
“the persistent trend in recent years is to see the Gospels as essentially reliable, especially when properly understood, and to view the historical Jesus in terms much closer to Christianity’s traditional understanding, i.e., as the proclaimer of God’s rule, as understanding himself as the Lord’s anointed, and, indeed, as God’s own son, destined to rule Israel.”
(from http://craigaevans.com/Third_Quest.rev.pdf)John A.T. Robinson:
“The wealth of manuscripts, and above all the narrow interval of time between the writing and the earliest extant copies, make it by far the best attested text of any ancient writing in the world.”
(From Can we Trust the New Testament?, p36)You can find more quotes on Jesus in history, <a href="http://www.is-there-a-god.info/belief/nthistory.shtml"Are the gospels historical.
Note that both Evans & Sanders claim to be reporting the view of the majority of scholars.
I don’t think archaeology can help much because it can throw light on places, but not much on the text. But the much-maligned John’s gospel has been found by archaeology to report accurately several locations that were destroyed long before it was written – see Archaeology and John’s gospel.
So that’s as much as I should write here. Please check out the references for more.
kcchief1:
unkleE, you can always find Scholars to support your claims. That doesn’t mean they are right. Here are just a few Scholars who don’t agree with your Scholars. If your evidence was conclusive, why this disagreement amongst Scholars. Also when you tour Jerusalem the most common statement your Tour guide will make before he talks about a Holy Site or Holy person is the famous, ” Tradition tells us” NOT “History tells us” I was recently in the ancient city of Ephesus and someone from my group asked the local guide why he kept using the phrase,”Tradition tells us Paul preached here …isn’t there archaeological evidence for this?” The guide said ,”It’s your story not ours” I have no proof there wasn’t a Jesus any more than you have proof there was. I agree that much of the NT is historical in as much as certain cities, villages, and government official’s names are true. But you can’t boldly proclaim there is historical evidence for the main character, Jesus.
Oh not that it really matters because it proves nothing either but here are scholars who question the historicity of Jesus and/or the NT.
When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up.
-Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)
The world has been for a long time engaged in writing lives of Jesus… The library of such books has grown since then. But when we come to examine them, one startling fact confronts us: all of these books relate to a personage concerning whom there does not exist a single scrap of contemporary information — not one! By accepted tradition he was born in the reign of Augustus, the great literary age of the nation of which he was a subject. In the Augustan age historians flourished; poets, orators, critics and travelers abounded. Yet not one mentions the name of Jesus Christ, much less any incident in his life.
-Moncure D. Conway [1832 – 1907] (Modern Thought)
It is only in comparatively modern times that the possibility was considered that Jesus does not belong to history at all.
-J.M. Robertson (Pagan Christs)
Many people– then and now– have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as “letters of Paul.” Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen “Pauline” letters now included in the New Testament. collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus– letters written in a style different from Paul’s and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul’s own letters. About the authorship of Ephesias, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the “deutero-Pauline”– literally, secondarily Pauline– letters.”
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (Adam, Eve, and the Serpent)
We know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, (The Gnostic Gospels)
Some hoped to penetrate the various accounts and to discover the “historical Jesus”. . . and that sorting out “authentic” material in the gospels was virtually impossible in the absence of independent evidence.”
-Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University
The gospels are so anonymous that their titles, all second-century guesses, are all four wrong.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Far from being an intimate of an intimate of Jesus, Mark wrote at the forth remove from Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
Mark himself clearly did not know any eyewitnesses of Jesus.
-Randel McCraw Helms (Who Wrote the Gospels?)
All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.
-Steve Mason, professor of classics, history and religious studies at York University in Toronto (Bible Review, Feb. 2000, p. 36)
The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.
-Bishop John Shelby Spong
But even if it could be proved that John’s Gospel had been the first of the four to be written down, there would still be considerable confusion as to who “John” was. For the various styles of the New Testament texts ascribed to John- The Gospel, the letters, and the Book of Revelations– are each so different in their style that it is extremely unlikely that they had been written by one person.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
It was not until the third century that Jesus’ cross of execution became a common symbol of the Christian faith.
-John Romer, archeologist & Bible scholar (Testament)
What one believes and what one can demonstrate historically are usually two different things.
-Robert J. Miller, Bible scholar, (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p. 9)
When it comes to the historical question about the Gospels, I adopt a mediating position– that is, these are religious records, close to the sources, but they are not in accordance with modern historiographic requirements or professional standards.
-David Noel Freedman, Bible scholar and general editor of the Anchor Bible series (Bible Review, December 1993, Vol. IX, Number 6, p.34)
Paul did not write the letters to Timothy to Titus or several others published under his name; and it is unlikely that the apostles Matthew, James, Jude, Peter and John had anything to do with the canonical books ascribed to them.
-Michael D. Coogan, Professor of religious studies at Stonehill College (Bible Review, June 1994)
A generation after Jesus’ death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large number of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E.
-Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College (Bible Review, Dec. 1994, p. 37)
James Dunn says that the Sermon on the Mount, mentioned only by Matthew, “is in fact not historical.”
How historical can the Gospels be? Are Murphy-O-Conner’s speculations concerning Jesus’ baptism by John simply wrong-headed? How can we really know if the baptism, or any other event written about in the Gospels, is historical?
-Daniel P. Sullivan (Bible Review, June 1996, Vol. XII, Number 3, p. 5)
David Friedrich Strauss (The Life of Jesus, 1836), had argued that the Gospels could not be read as straightforward accounts of what Jesus actually did and said; rather, the evangelists and later redactors and commentators, influenced by their religious beliefs, had made use of myths and legends that rendered the gospel narratives, and traditional accounts of Jesus’ life, unreliable as sources of historical information.
-Bible Review, October 1996, Vol. XII, Number 5, p. 39
The Gospel authors were Jews writing within the midrashic tradition and intended their stories to be read as interpretive narratives, not historical accounts.
-Bishop Shelby Spong, Liberating the Gospels
Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “Who Wrote the Bible,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Yet today, there are few Biblical scholars– from liberal skeptics to conservative evangelicals- who believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John actually wrote the Gospels. Nowhere do the writers of the texts identify themselves by name or claim unambiguously to have known or traveled with Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Once written, many experts believe, the Gospels were redacted, or edited, repeatedly as they were copied and circulated among church elders during the last first and early second centuries.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The tradition attributing the fourth Gospel to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is first noted by Irenaeus in A.D. 180. It is a tradition based largely on what some view as the writer’s reference to himself as “the beloved disciple” and “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Current objection to John’s authorship are based largely on modern textural analyses that strongly suggest the fourth Gospel was the work of several hands, probably followers of an elderly teacher in Asia Minor named John who claimed as a young man to have been a disciple of Jesus.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Some scholars say so many revisions occurred in the 100 years following Jesus’ death that no one can be absolutely sure of the accuracy or authenticity of the Gospels, especially of the words the authors attributed to Jesus himself.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Three letters that Paul allegedly wrote to his friends and former co-workers Timothy and Titus are now widely disputed as having come from Paul’s hand.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The Epistle of James is a practical book, light on theology and full of advice on ethical behavior. Even so, its place in the Bible has been challenged repeatedly over the years. It is generally believed to have been written near the end of the first century to Jewish Christians. . . but scholars are unable conclusively to identify the writer.
Five men named James appear in the New Testament: the brother of Jesus, the son of Zebedee, the son of Alphaeus, “James the younger” and the father of the Apostle Jude.
Little is known of the last three, and since the son of Zebedee was martyred in A.D. 44, tradition has leaned toward the brother of Jesus. However, the writer never claims to be Jesus’ brother. And scholars find the language too erudite for a simple Palestinian. This letter is also disputed on theological grounds. Martin Luther called it “an epistle of straw” that did not belong in the Bible because it seemed to contradict Paul’s teachings that salvation comes by faith as a “gift of God”– not by good works.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The origins of the three letters of John are also far from certain.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Christian tradition has held that the Apostle Peter wrote the first [letter], probably in Rome shortly before his martyrdom about A.D. 65. However, some modern scholars cite the epistle’s cultivated language and its references to persecutions that did not occur until the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) as evidence that it was actually written by Peter’s disciples sometime later.
Second Peter has suffered even harsher scrutiny. Many scholars consider it the latest of all New Testament books, written around A.D. 125. The letter was never mentioned in second-century writings and was excluded from some church canons into the fifth century. “This letter cannot have been written by Peter,” wrote Werner Kummel, a Heidelberg University scholar, in his highly regarded Introduction to the New Testament.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
The letter of Jude also is considered too late to have been written by the attested author– “the brother of James” and, thus, of Jesus. The letter, believed written early in the second century.
-Jeffery L. Sheler, “The catholic papers,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
According to the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, a faithful account of the actions and words of Jesus is to be found in the Gospels; but it is impossible to reconcile this with the existence in the text of contradictions, improbabilities, things which are materially impossible or statements which run contrary to firmly established reality.
-Maurice Bucaille (The Bible, the Quran, and Science)
The bottom line is we really don’t know for sure who wrote the Gospels.
-Jerome Neyrey, of the Weston School of Theology, Cambridge, Mass. in “The Four Gospels,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)
Most scholars have come to acknowledge, was done not by the Apostles but by their anonymous followers (or their followers’ followers). Each presented a somewhat different picture of Jesus’ life. The earliest appeared to have been written some 40 years after his Crucifixion.
-David Van Biema, “The Gospel Truth?” (Time, April 8, 1996)
So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that “we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus.”
-Rudolf Bultmann, University of Marburg, the foremost Protestant scholar in the field in 1926
The Synoptic Gospels employ techniques that we today associate with fiction.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
Josephus says that he himself witnessed a certain Eleazar casting out demons by a method of exorcism that had been given to Solomon by God himself– while Vespasian watched! In the same work, Josephus tells the story of a rainmaker, Onias (14.2.1).
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
For Mark’s gospel to work, for instance, you must believe that Isaiah 40:3 (quoted, in a slightly distorted form, in Mark 1:2-3) correctly predicted that a stranger named John would come out of the desert to prepare the way for Jesus. It will then come as something of a surprise to learn in the first chapter of Luke that John is a near relative, well known to Jesus’ family.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 43)
The narrative conventions and world outlook of the gospel prohibit our using it as a historical record of that year.
-Paul Q. Beeching, Central Connecticut State University (Bible Review, June 1997, Vol. XIII, Number 3, p. 54)
Jesus is a mythical figure in the tradition of pagan mythology and almost nothing in all of ancient literature would lead one to believe otherwise. Anyone wanting to believe Jesus lived and walked as a real live human being must do so despite the evidence, not because of it.
-C. Dennis McKinsey, Bible critic (The Encyclopedia of Biblical Errancy)
The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They’re not biographies.
-Paula Fredriksen, Professor and historian of early Christianity, Boston University (in the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, aired in 1998)
The gospels are not eyewitness accounts
-Allen D. Callahan, Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School
We are led to conclude that, in Paul’s past, there was no historical Jesus. Rather, the activities of the Son about which God’s gospel in scripture told, as interpreted by Paul, had taken place in the spiritual realm and were accessible only through revelation.
-Earl Doherty, “The Jesus Puzzle,” p.83
Before the Gospels were adopted as history, no record exists that he was ever in the city of Jerusalem at all– or anywhere else on earth.
-Earl Doherty, “The Jesus Puzzle,” p.141
Even if there was a historical Jesus lying back of the gospel Christ, he can never be recovered. If there ever was a historical Jesus, there isn’t one any more. All attempts to recover him turn out to be just modern remythologizings of Jesus. Every “historical Jesus” is a Christ of faith, of somebody’s faith. So the “historical Jesus” of modern scholarship is no less a fiction.
-Robert M. Price, “Jesus: Fact or Fiction, A Dialogue With Dr. Robert Price and Rev. John Rankin,” Opening Statement
It is important to recognize the obvious: The gospel story of Jesus is itself apparently mythic from first to last.”
-Robert M. Price, professor of biblical criticism at the Center for Inquiry Institute (Deconstructing Jesus, p. 260)
kcchief1:
unkleE, I could have shortened my last post by 90% by simply providing one Scholar whose reputation speaks for himself. Geza Vermes
Géza Vermes or Vermès (Hungarian: [ˈɡeːzɒ ˈvɛrmɛʃ], 22 June 1924 – 8 May 2013) was a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin—one who also served as a Catholic priest in his youth—and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He was a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient works in Aramaic such as the Targums, and on the life and religion of Jesus. He was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research,[1] and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time.[2] Vermes’ written work on Jesus focuses principally on Jesus the Jew, as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning the basis of some Christian teachings on Jesus.[3]
Geza Vermes on the Resurrection
Vermes contends that neither the empty tomb or resurrection appearances satisfy the “minimum requirements of a legal or scientific inquiry. The only alternative historians are left with in their effort to make some sense of the Resurrection is to fall back on speculation…”(141) This speculation requires the dismissal of “two extreme” theories – (1) the “blind faith of the fundamentalist” who accept the bodily resurrection and (2) the “unbelievers” who “treat the whole Resurrection story as the figment of early Christian imagination.” (141) So what are the alternatives between this spectrum?
1. The Body was Removed by Someone Unconnected with Jesus
The emptiness of the tomb was genuine, but there are a number of reasons aside from Mark 16:6. The swift nature of the burial in a tomb “obviously prepared for someone else” is explained that someone – possibly the gardener (Jn 20:15) – “took the first opportunity to move the body of Jesus to another available tomb.” (142) It was this innocent transfer of the body that later developed into the “legend of the Resurrection.” (143) Vermes notes that this is itself problematic – those who organised the burial were well known and could have explained this.2. The Body of Jesus was Stolen by His Disciples
Those familiar with the narrative in Matthew will recognise this hypothesis as a current polemic against the empty tomb tradition (Matt 28:15). Vermes points out that this theory “presupposes that a fraudulent prophecy concerning Jesus’ rising from the dead was widely known among Palestinian Jews.” (143) Evidently, this is a “later Jewish gossip” circulating the time the evangelist was writing and its value for the Resurrection is “next to nil”.3. The Empty Tomb was not the Tomb of Jesus
Drawing on the fact that the witness of women was not very convincing, the disciples who investigated the report of the empty tomb (Luke 24:11) may have suspected the women had “gone to the wrong tomb.” The disciples may have simply been mistaken, and the resurrection appearances that soon followed “rendered such an inquiry [as to the location of the tomb] superfluous.” (144)4. Buried Alive, Jesus Later Left the Tomb
This is self-explanatory, and is elaborately forwarded by Barbara Thiering. Josephus’ Life 420 evidences crucifixion victims surviving. The theory is that Jesus was on the cross for such a short time that he was not dead when Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body. John’s mention of the spear in the side was an apologetic to dispel these sort of doubts. (John 19:34) However, I would argue that John’s mention, if invention, would have more to do with suffering servant styled prophecy fulfilled. Vermes sees this as implausible – a “semiconscious Jesus crept out of the tomb in the darkness of night…” (145)5. The Migrant Jesus
A belief evident in contemporary Ahmadiyya Islam which believes Jesus was revived and eventually died in Kashmir, India. Others such as Thiering believe that Jesus wandered off to Rome where he died. Vermes concludes “In the absence of real ancient evidence, these modern musings need not retain us.”(146) By real evidence, he is of course referring to Thiering’s discovery by using “Pesher” to find whatever she wants in whatever document. For a brief review of pesher see my earlier post.6. Do the appearances suggest spiritual, not bodily, resurrection?
Visions of the risen Jesus are abundant in the Christian sources (with a notable exception being the shorter ending of Mark.) These visions are separated into 4 categories:
1. “In Matthew no concrete details are given”
2. John/Luke – unknown man such as the gardener and travel are later recognised as Jesus
3. Luke/John – “a spirit mysteriously enters the apostles’ residence despite the locked doors”
4. “The ghost later becomes a stranger with flesh and bones, who says he is Jesus and invited the apostles to touch him, and eat with him.” (146)
As the evangelists do not mention appearances to people outside the circle of his close followers Vermes takes these to imply that the Resurrection was not meant to be an extension of public ministry. In essence, the “Resurrection becomes a purely spiritual concept without requiring any accompanying physical reality.” (147) The idea of spiritual resurrection accounts for the visions, but the Jewish bond of body and spirit spurred the empty tomb and physicality of the body in John and Luke. In appealing to the mystic tradition, Vermes contends that this view is no different from crosscultural experiences. [I didn’t explain this option best although in my defence neither does Vermes.]Conclusions
Vermes really does come to something quite unsatisfying – “All in all, none of the six suggested theories stands up to stringent scrutiny.”Geza Vermes on the Nativity
‘The nature of the birth stories and the many fabulous features incorporated in them, angels, dreams, virginal conception, miraculous star,’ bring Dr Vermes to the view that the Infancy Gospels are ‘not the stuff out of which history is made’.Thank you for your time
Finding Truth 
Joen- ” How can a person coming to be through virgin birth have a literal human father and a literal genealogy?” that is a good question and one I second. In any event, the bible gives several to chose from, and neither match what was previously given in the OT. Claiming that order or accuracy doesnt matter is ludicrous. The only reason to present them is for evidence – when it can be shown to be inaccurate, how is that evidence “for?”
I’m really not understanding you. and just as aside, I quit believing when things such as this started piling up so high, I could no longer claim that Christianity was superior to any other man made religion with their basis in “false assumptions.”
And all the earlier emperors and ruler who claimed to be descendants from gods were also using genealogies in the way i using them. yes, i believe they were wrong, lying or mistaken, but they still used it in a literal sense – otherwise it means nothing. Not today and not back then.
And in your response to nate, were you trying to say that the bible was all fouled up my people who compiled and translated it? I mean, i agree with you and all, but I have trouble understanding how you can take a book with errors in it, in which everything written in it could mean anything (because ancient people apparently only communicated in nonsense, and the rest was figurative) and still believe in it? I mean, do you believe it was from god? do you believe in jesus? if not, then I guess we agree on the larger parts.
And I’m glad you now have a better understanding of skepticism and fundamentalism, but i still am miles away from understanding your position. And where are you from, if you dont mind my asking?
LikeLike
This question from KC is the crux of the issue:
I would like to know why you believe Christianity at all. What’s your evidence for it? Why do you believe it over Islam, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Deism, or any other -ism?
LikeLike
Joen,
We’re obviously talking past one another; coming from very different places.
I think you understand where I’m coming from regarding my issues with the genealogies and why I see them as problematic.
Let me try to clarify why I’m not understanding your position.
1. You say that the people long ago regularly listed genealogies in such a way and would readily understand and accept it. I have a hard time with this for a few reasons:
a. Wouldn’t the people of long ago still have understood an accurate genealogy? This would have eliminated this problem entirely making it without issue for all people for all time.
b. What would two inaccurate genealogies have meant to the people of old? Why even go to the trouble of presenting rubbish as if it meant something?
2. Jesus wasn’t literally the son of Joseph (but the son of god) so the genealogies are not literal either.
a. Sure they’re not literal in the sense that jesus was adopted, but the genealogies at least appear to be presenting the adopted son as being in the line of david through his adoptive father, Joseph. So the bloodline to jesus is ”figurative” (although adoptive may be more accurate) but through Joseph it is presenting itself as literal – it doesn’t make sense otherwise.
b. If it were figurative and if it didn’t matter what names were presented, then what possible significance could it have? Why give it at all?
Again, you may disagree with my end conclusion, but I think you’d have to at least understand WHY I see it the way I do, and HOW I got there… I think my position is pretty simple.
And you gave an earlier analogy regarding the mention of donkeys and elephants in today’s newspaper as making no sense a thousand years from now. I get that. People reading that would try to rationalize it somehow, because people aren’t really donkeys or elephants, so they would likely try to predict what it stood for, what the comparison or symbolism was about – because it couldn’t be literal unless whoever wrote the paper was just insanely incorrect.
Similarly, that’s how I take the bible. Either jesus wasn’t a god on earth in the form of a man (meaning the bible authors were wrong/incorrect) or they were using the term figuratively to mean or represent something else… either way, jesus wasn’t literally the son of god, no more than anyone else. Is this what you mean?
of course, all of this only after nate and KC’s question…
LikeLike
@joe, “William rejects the ancient Jesus genealogies’ constructions because they don’t live up to modern standards. He wants me to agree they should speak live up to modern standards, although it is impossible on two levels; they are ancient and they are supernatural.”
Joe, If they were made up and written down by man , I would agree with you. Because you claim they are “supernatural” , all the more reason they would hold up to modern scrutiny. If it were truly God doing these supernatural wonders , he wouldn’t dare make contradictions in their stories for fear man would discredit them as manmade myth.
You still haven’t answered the multiple requests from William, Nate or I about why you believe in the virgin birth, dying, resurrected Jesus ?
LikeLike
It looks fair to say that Mythicism has some obstacles, that so far have proven insurmountable to solve probably:
1. Paul, a first-century writer who lived before the fall of Jerusalem, on a few occasions clearly refers to Jesus as a human being (Gal. 4: 4, Rom. 1: 3); besides he casually claims to have met his brother (“the brother of the Lord”, Gal. 1: 19, he meets him again – only called James this time – in Gal. 2: 1-10).
2. The gospels contain material that are unlikely as inventions for a fictional person. For example, there was no expectation of a crucified messiah in second-temple Judaism (contrary to Fundamentalist claims), crucifixion was an egregiously dishonourable punishment for loathsome criminals. Since inventing something like this was simply horrible PR (attested by Paul, 1 Cor 1: 22-23), the crucifixion is likelier historical. Other such are Jesus’ inability to perform miracles in Nazareth (Mar. 6: 5) and his baptism by John the Baptist (Mar. 1: 9), implying subordination (and thus emended or omitted in gospels other than gMark). In a wholly fictional account with the agenda to promulgate a religious cult, you would expect the storyline to be much more smoother.
3. The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus refers to Jesus twice, in Ant. XVIII 63-64 and Ant. XX 200. Ant. XVIII 63-64 has been mangled by a Christian interpolator, but while there is no agreement on what’s exactly authentic and what not, several additions are extremely obvious (“if it’s okay to call him a man”, “he was the messiah”). It seems that our interpolator was no master forger, so it is unlikely that he made the whole passage up. That means that there was likely an original passage referring to Jesus. And interpolations are often assumed by Mythicists in Ant. XX 200, but the evidence for it is very thin. It is difficult to explain why a Christian would forge this section as they have little to gain from it. That does not mean there are no Mythicist attempts to explain it, but they are unconvincing.
Mythicist have their strategies to evade these points, for instance claiming that “brother of the Lord” is not describing a relative but either “Christian” in general (I wonder how that works out in combination with 1 Cor. 9: 3-6) or a special group of Christians that is mentioned nowhere else. The only reason to read it this way is because it is inconvenient to the Mythicist cause, so this reading isn’t based on evidence.
Now there are many Mythicist arguments on what should have been if Jesus had existed: Paul should have mentioned many more details about Jesus, many more writers should have mentioned Jesus and the like. The problem with this is that Paul didn’t write epistles to provide people biographical details about Jesus, but in order to manage congregations at a distance, congregations he had been to and who already knew the gospel he preached. And the bizarre list of people who should have mentioned Jesus seems more based on the expectation that they would write about a Jesus Christ Superstar – but the thing is that Jesus was an outback preacher who would not have drawn empire-wide attention.
So I think there is a convincing case that Jesus indeed did exist. Now it is true that there is a significant diversity of opinion among scholars about who Jesus was – but that is not a valid rebuttal. On the same token, many Mythicists disagree about what kind of myth Jesus was.
LikeLike
@ignorantianescia, ” And the bizarre list of people who should have mentioned Jesus seems more based on the expectation that they would write about a Jesus Christ Superstar – but the thing is that Jesus was an outback preacher who would not have drawn empire-wide attention.”
Starting from his birth it looks like Jesus drew empire-wide attention to me and beyond since the Magi probably came from the Orient . He was supposedly from Royal Lineage too !
I think there should have been more written about him if the biblical evidence about him is valid.
Mt 2: 2 After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem 2 and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
3 When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4 When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:
6 “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.’[b]”
7 Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. 8 He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
LikeLike
yeah, I think jesus was real for some of the same reasons you pointed out, but I also think most of what Christians believe about him is myth, for obvious reasons. jesus being a guy who lived in the first century = believable and likely true. Jesus being the literal son of god, born of a literal virgin, died a literal death and literally flew into heaven after raising from the dead = safely in the “myth.”
I also believe the Trojan War was real, but I think Homer made most of it Myth – I also think this for for obvious reasons.
LikeLike
ignorantianescia, I don’t think you can downplay what little evidence exists outside the bible when there is so much supposed evidence in the bible from his birth to his resurrection.
He may have existed on earth as a human. I don’t think many here would argue that possibility. It’s the Divinity issue where I would take exception.
Are you claiming he was just a man or divine ?
LikeLike
“Starting from his birth it looks like Jesus drew empire-wide attention to me and beyond since the Magi probably came from the Orient . He was supposedly from Royal Lineage too !”
Point taken, but I don’t think that the (two incompatible) infancy narratives are acceptable as a historical source.
“I think there should have been more written about him if the biblical evidence about him is valid.”
I agree that there are many embellishments and fantastic stories in the gospels, but that does not prevent historical traditions being present. As I have argued under point 2, it’s very probable that there are historical traditions in the gospels.
“ignorantianescia, I don’t think you can downplay what little evidence exists outside the bible when there is so much supposed evidence in the bible from his birth to his resurrection.”
Again, I would wholeheartedly agree that several episodes about Jesus are implausible or simply impossible, like the infancy narratives and f.e. Mark 5: 1-20. But overall, the picture that emerges from the gospels is a Jesus who was a messianic claimant who proclaimed the Kingdom of God, a travelling teacher who focussed on the poor and sinners and someone with the reputation of a faith healer and exorcist. Josephus doesn’t portray Jesus as a messianic pretender, but he does call him a “performer of perplexing deeds” and a teacher. That doesn’t mean every miracle or parable in every gospel originates from Jesus – in any case, secular history can only accept miracles that can be explained as psychosomatic or from anthropology of healing.
“He may have existed on earth as a human.”
Then I don’t think we have any discussion here.
“I don’t think many here would argue that possibility.”
You’d be surprised!
“It’s the Divinity issue where I would take exception.”
I think most people who think Jesus existed would.
“Are you claiming he was just a man or divine ?”
I’m claiming here that there was a first-century Jewish man named Yeshua’ who really existed.
However, if I’d leave it at that, I wouldn’t be truthful, as I’m also a non-dogmatic Trinitarian Christian – so I believe he wasn’t just a man. But I am not interested in discussing that here, as I intend to remain on-topic and discuss the historical Jesus defended by secular historians. Feel free to ask me at some other time, though.
LikeLike
Ah, I get along with that. jesus was a historical dude who had a series of embellished letters books based (maybe loosely) on his life. I agree with that historical notion of jesus. I do not agree that the “divine” or “miraculous” version of jesus was historical, though.
LikeLike
Thank you for your candid and honest comments, Ignorantianescia. I think you, William and I share a lot of common ground until we get to the Divine Nature of Jesus. I think believing in his divinity is where faith has to come into play. I don’t see where you could provide compelling evidence for this otherwise.
LikeLike
If there was a Rabbi named Yeshua he sure as heck was not the person reflected in the Gospels, nor the one referred to by Paul. That figure is a pure narrative construct.
And aside from the bible, just what evidence is there for Saul/Paul?
LikeLike
I visited the ancient city of ephesus in Turkey not so long ago and asked my guide that same question , Ark. He said there was no archaeological evidence of Paul ever being there. He referred to it as a Christian Tradition not History.
LikeLike
“If there was a Rabbi named Yeshua he sure as heck was not the person reflected in the Gospels, nor the one referred to by Paul. That figure is a pure narrative construct.”
“Pure narrative construct” is an overstatement as there is a body of evidence that likely reflects the historical Jesus – and several scholars who investigated the historical Jesus accept actually a surprisingly large amount of Jesus traditions from a naturalistic perspective, while others are of course much more sceptical – but I agree that the gospels are slanted, not interested in unbiased or even critical biography and often eager to make theological or polemical cases. There are good reasons to doubt that the general synoptic set-up is not chronological, for instance. However, there is also much that fits very well in the setting of early first-century Palestinian Judaism in the gospels, despite some anachronisms.
“And aside from the bible, just what evidence is there for Saul/Paul?”
I have not delved deeply into extrabiblical sources for Paul, but he is alluded to in 1 Clement, for what it is worth. Considering that we have a number of authentic letters from the man and a theological/historical account from another man (the author of gLuke and Acts) who may have travelled with him, that is a persuasive body of evidence for him – ancient people who have worse attestation are generally not doubted to have existed either. Even many Jesus Mythers tend to stay away from Paul scepticism and I know of no current scholar with an academic position who denies Paul’s existence – so I am not inclined to doubt his existence.
LikeLike
@ignorantianescia
”There are good reasons to doubt that the general synoptic set-up is not chronological, for instance. However, there is also much that fits very well in the setting of early first-century Palestinian Judaism in the gospels, despite some anachronisms.”
Would youy care to offer up any evidence for this claim?
‘Alluded to” .Means what exactly?.
”They are claimed to be authentic” And why are they claimed to be authentic?
‘the author of gLuke and Acts) who may have travelled with him,” hearsay.
LikeLike
@kccchief
”I visited the ancient city of ephesus in Turkey not so long ago and asked my guide that same question , Ark. He said there was no archaeological evidence of Paul ever being there. He referred to it as a Christian Tradition not History.”
There are parts of his journey (the shipwreck) that have remarkable similarities to Josephus.
There is a line from the movie Life of Brian that I find apt in such circumstances and although a bit childish, is ideal for the Christian explanation.
“He’s making it up as he goes along.”
Yes…I am afraid they did…
LikeLike
I will give some examples. Though I hope you agree that I may then also ask you to present evidence.
* Mark 7: 1-23 features a confrontation between Jesus and some Pharisees on purity. The Pharisees accuse the disciples of not following the non-biblical tradition that hands should be washed before eating because impure hands pollute the food and that impure food contaminates the person eating it, making him ritually impure. Casey expounds on this episode in Jesus of Nazareth, page 326 to 331 in great detail, noting that orthodox Jews had expanded purity laws in this respect and he gives an example from the Mishna of late first-century Rabbis who assume that food eaten with unwashed hands indeed causes impurity. This shows that this episode makes good sense in the first century. There are very good reasons to suppose that this episode was not made up by the author but was based on an earlier tradition. In 7: 19b he explains that Jesus suspended dietary laws, but that is not what Jesus did at all. Since he shows he did not understand the story, it makes no sense to assume he made the happening that he misunderstood up.
* In Mark 15: 21 soldiers force Simon of Cyrene to carry the (crossbeam of the) cross. This is a case of soldiers using their right of angaria, to make people do compulsory labour. It is not a guarantee the story is historical, but again, it does make perfect sense in first-century Palestine.
* John 5: 2 describes in sufficient detail a pool with five porticos near the Sheep gate in Jerusalem. The pool has been discovered. This is information that predates the destruction of Jerusalem in the First Jewish War. See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pool_of_Bethesda
If you want, I can also give you examples of anachronisms.
1 Clement 47. He is mentioned there as having written a letter to the Corinthians.
Coherency of style, similar theology (despite developments in thought and inconsistencies), they claim to be written by Paul and overall they seem to describe the person portrayed in Acts, despite important differences between the accounts.
No. At several points, the narrative of Acts changes to the first person. The exact meaning of this is the subject of debate, but it is a valid view that the author actually travelled with Paul. Hence I deliberately used a modal verb.
LikeLike
You are using the bible to justify the bible.
”… despite important differences between the accounts.”
So therefore one can dismiss the discrepancies and find the bits that do fit because this is what you want to find?
This is simply cherry picking.
There are no verifiable non-biblical references to back any thing concerning Paul, and much of the biblical accounts are so ludicrous only a Christian could possibly find anything to consider worthwhile for their belief.
The epistles bear the name name, Paul. But that is as far as one can go. They might as well have borne the name The Ark.
LikeLike
This is not a valid objection, actually. The (Christian) Bible is a collection of documents ranging from the early 1st millenium BCE to the second century CE, with some texts likely even stemming from the late 2nd millenium BCE. That means there is much disparate material. In the case of witnesses for the historical Jesus, it is valid to ask to what measure the traditions are independent or interdependent and modern scholarship does and has done exactly that. They conclude that the Pauline epistles do not depend on the gospels, most gospels (with the possible exception of gLuke) do not seem to depend on the Pauline epistles and there are sophisticated models of interdependence between the synoptic gospels (with division in Marcan material, Q material, M material and L material).
Furthermore, I am not “justify[ing] the bible”, I am – not originally – using biblical texts critically to argue for a historical Jesus.
We must take care not to be overtly dichotomic or positivistic with our method. Discrepancies between accounts are a dime a dozen, the presence of discrepancies cannot be seized upon to discredit a source completely.
And the context of that quote is from where I state that Paul the writer of epistles can be identified with Paul a protagonist in Acts. The thing is, these Pauls can be said to be the same. For instance, note these similarities in portrayal:
– Both are Jews (Phil. 3: 5, Gal. 1: 13; Act. 21: 39).
– Both are (former) Pharisees (Phil. 3: 5; Act. 23: 6).
– Both have persecuted the early church (Phil. 3: 6, 1 Cor. 15: 9, Gal. 1: 13; Act. 8: 1-3).
– Both joined the church ‘late’ (1 Cor. 15: 8; Act. 9: 18).
– Both are converted by a visionary experience (1 Cor. 15: 5-8; Act. 9: 1-8).
– Both are involved in a council in Jerusalem (Gal. 2: 1-10; Act. 15).
– Both have a sidekick named Timothy (2 Coe. 1: 1, Phil. 1: 1, 1 Cor. 4: 17; Act. 16: 1-3, Act. 18: 5).
So unless we suppose that there were two Pauls, who were former Pharisees, former persecuters of the church, who converted late, a late birth, because of a christic vision, went to a council with the church leadership in Jerusalem and had a sidekick named Timothy, one the writer of the authentic epistles and another for the author of Acts to refer to, we can infer that this is about the same person. What seems more probable? This does not mean that both sources are completely accurate on all points, just that all are identifiable (it is possible that the author of Acts embellished these episodes, for instance).
See above. There are plenty of events in the New Testament that secular history cannot accept, but that does not preclude the usefulness of the NT as a source. It’s not only because the letters have Paul’s name that they are considered authentic, but even then it’s a non-argument. The Bar Kosiba letters are mainly identified as the second-century Jewish king’s because they bear his name and other letters in the corpus are addressed to him. Do you think they might as well carry the name “The Ark”?
More importantly, does the fact that you only address my points on Paul mean you agree with my other points?
Also, may I ask what your views are regarding the existence of Paul?
LikeLike
”Furthermore, I am not “justify[ing] the bible”, I am – not originally – using biblical texts critically to argue for a historical Jesus.”
Smile….Okay, I will call that an attempt ( and a poor one) at sophisticated bullshit.
It might not have come straight out of the WLC book of apologetics but damn close. Sorry, old fruit. This wont wash.
Try again….
”See above. There are plenty of events in the New Testament that secular history cannot accept, but that does not preclude the usefulness of the NT as a source”
Cannot accept? Have not historical or evidentiary grounds grounds to accept.
As a source for what, pray? Jesus? lol….Once more…total nonsense. Pure apologetics.
The Paul in Acts does not resemble the Paul in the epistles on numerous occasions.
Events don’t tie up characters don’t match, and much of the story is rather silly.
I reiterate, only a Christian is able to glibly harmonize Acts and the Epistles.
The shipwreck is a particular case of how ridiculous the story is.
And, no, I am not going to bother dissecting that point by point because you are simply not open or intellectually honest enough to handle it. You demonstrate this by using the gospels to justify the gospels argument.
And you and I have had a few head to heads in the past over at unklee’ spot, especially over such topics as the mythical town of Nazareth for me to even consider you would be anything other than disingenuous.
LikeLike
Anyone can see that I am not “justifying the bible with the bible”, so your criticism does not succeed. That you glibly compare it with Craig’s apologetics is telling. Do you think actual scholars have a hand at apologetics.
It is also notable you do not give any substantial critique of either my intent or my reasons why this is painting the situation with too broad a brush: we need to analyse individual.
Yes, there are plenty of events in the New Testament for which there is not enough evidence to accept them, that was more or less what I had in mind with “cannot”, not that it were too biased (though it has its limitations). But okay.
And it can be used as a historical source, if used critically. If material is embarrassing to the purpose of the author, it is likely an authentic tradition, for instance. Historians are used to sift through sources with a critical mind.
Consider the modern pseudohistorical genre of Ronald Reagan hagiographies. To read one at face value you would get served to pure ordure. It would paint Reagan as some kind of demigod, personally responsible for manhandling Gorbachev and his “Evil Empire”, as a saviour of the world economy and as a highly intelligent man. Such traditions are unreliable. However, if it would justify the support of Contras in Nicaragua by arguing against West-European and UN observers who stated that the Sandinistas were elected democratically and fairly, that is good evidence for Reagan having supported counter-revolutionaries against a democratically elected government.
Along similar lines, I doubt that any historian considers the long speeches in Acts genuine or that there the many fulfilled prophecies mentioned in gMatthew are of any value. But few deny his itinerant ministry, his crucifixion in Jerusalem, his status as a reputed healer, his involvement in Jewish religious debates and his upending of sales tables within the Temple grounds.
I think you may have misunderstood my point. I have already noted that there are incongruities. Nevertheless, you have not refuted my grounds for identifying the Paul of the epistles with the Paul of Acts.
We are on full agreement that a complete harmonisation is only possible from within the Christian faith – and I must say that I do not have an interest in doing so. However identification is definitely possible and some harmonisation (some reports could be about the same event, though perhaps in this source from a very skewed perspective) must not be ruled out on prior grounds.
I’m not sure what you consider “intellectually honest”, but I surely consider myself that sufficiently to be capable of discussion. Ditto for “open”. If you have a substantial argument against that accompanied with evidence, for instance when I deliberately misrepresent others’ opinions, then I, and I suppose others here, would be interested to be in the know. Not bothering to reply while you assume that I am too dishonest isn’t fair though.
What was disingenuous about the Nazareth discussion?
I have already indicated what’s wrong with claiming I “use the Bible to justify the Bible”. The same applies to the allegation that I were “using the gospels to justify the gospels argument”.
The shipwreck is a single case, it cannot be used to discredit an entire souce.
LikeLike
@ignorantianescia
LOL…no, sir, we will not got there. I am not going to enter into an argument over that once more. An certainly not jive arse like you who delights in semantics.
I would merely draw your attention to the account in Luke.
The whole Nazareth scene is a crock from beginning to end, and well you know it.Helene, Bagatti, Pffan and all managed one of the greatest cons in biblical history.
You enjoy your your delusion…..
‘
😉 Then please tell me,how many examples would you accept before you were honest enough to go from this stance to ”Okay, Ark, I see your point, it is crap.”
Five, ten, twenty, fifty?
Give me a figure and I will see if I can match it.
Your call…..
LikeLike
Well, that attempt at block quoting didn’t turn t as I’d hoped. Sorry…
LikeLike
Yes, to end blockquotes tags are needed. But no worries, I can read it. I’ll comment on it later (maybe tomorrow), as I’ll be busy for the rest of the day.
Best wishes.
LikeLike
I spent a bit of time practicing..I reckon I have it sorted.
So…how many little oddities in Acts etc would you like me to find?
I have the whole afternoon free.?
LikeLike