Originally posted by Bosse de NageIncontestable but pointless.
David C is arguing from an incontestable position: the physical existence of Jesus bar-Joseph cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt, short of someone somewhere turning up a rag, a bone or a hank of hair.
Even turning up a rag, a bone or a hank of hair would prove nothing since there is nothing to compare it to. Even if two different ones turned up it would prove nothing, except that at least one was fake.
As I've said before, I think this whole discussion has been oblivious as to the level of documentation that exists on most of ancient history.
Originally posted by PalynkaI couldn't agree more.
Incontestable but pointless.
Even turning up a rag, a bone or a hank of hair would prove nothing since there is nothing to compare it to. Even if two different ones turned up it would prove nothing, except that at least one was fake.
...[text shortened]... the level of documentation that exists on most of ancient history.
My post touches on the scarcity of ancient documentation (Pilate) and refers to discussions of Mark's gospel as an historical document.
Please say what you want to say about the level of documentation.
Originally posted by Bosse de NageThank you for stepping in! I think DavidC and I were not far from the point where we'd almost come to blows (btw David - apologies for any intended/unintended character slurs).
The two of you don't seem to be getting very far in your discussion.
David C is arguing from an incontestable position: the physical existence of Jesus bar-Joseph cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt, short of someone somewhere turning up a rag, a bone or a hank of hair.
LH presents the textual evidence, which David C dismisses out of hand ...[text shortened]... yond a reasonable doubt. However, the secondary evidence is enough for me.
Now, if I were an atheist, the more interesting hypotheses about the historical Jesus would be:
1. Was there one historical Jesus, or many? After all, Yeshua wasn't an uncommon name in 1st cent Palestine; nor was there any shortage of Messiahs. Is it possible that that the Biblical Jesus (from the perspective of his teachings, at least) is really a composite of multiple real teachers?
2. If the more miraculuous elements were redacted into Jesus's life, when and how did it happen?
Originally posted by lucifershammerThis is the moment of delirious hypothetical metastasis.
Now, if I were an atheist, the more interesting hypotheses about the historical Jesus would be:
1. Was there one historical Jesus, or many? After all, Yeshua wasn't an uncommon name in 1st cent Palestine; nor was there any sh ...[text shortened]... ents were redacted into Jesus's life, when and how did it happen?
Let us assume, for the sake of argument, there are indeed similarities between the story of Horus and the story of Jesus.
Let us then subtract all the obviously supernatural elements of each story.
I take it, from my limited understanding, that the Horus/Osiris story is entirely filled with Gods, yes? No historical setting whatsoever.
So we are left with the story of Jesus - of a carpenter's son who wandered around preaching.
Now, which is more likely? (Yes, I am consciously using the same phrase as was used before)
- That someone took an entirely supernatural story about Gods and decided to tone it down by adding a distinctly non-glamorous human figure, or
- That someone took a historical figure and decided to beef him up with all sorts of wonderful supernatural attributes stolen from an old Egyptian myth?
I would dearly like to see someone argue that human nature does not favour option B. And this argument places NO weight on the divinity of Jesus or the accuracy of either story, so you can hardly accuse me of using a biased Christian viewpoint.
Originally posted by OmnislashI would like to reiterate that the defining line in this "discussion" is the criteria by which the individual considers their reference to be validated. Burden of proof is an irrelevant variable when brought to dissimilar minds with dissimilar criteria by which they validate their historical data, and subsequently form their perception.
Formost, I do not consider myself a "Jesusbot", thought I suppose it would depend on the criteria for the term.
Anyway, all I can say is I would like to see "undisputable historical reference" for, literally, anything. There does not exist "undisputable historical reference" that man landed on the moon. I will not make a case on something that hap ...[text shortened]... person bases their beliefs, I would think that they do not believe in much of anything at all.
The topic really should be about (and really is about) what a logical standard of criteria is by which to consider historical data to be accurate enough for serious consideration is. Obviously, different people have different criteria for what historical data has met a burden of proof sufficient enough for serious consideration to the point of affecting their perception/belief/theory. I would suggest that the causes for differing standards are numerable, not the least of which is a perception of preference and inherant differences in assumptive data processing, both frequently an earmark of individual experience and the inherantly different manner in which the individual both assimilates and processes the data of their lives. The reason for the difference in standards really is fairly moot (in my opinion). The point as it is relevant to this discussion is that the most fruitfull debate would be centralized around this basic premise off differing criteria, as opposed to weighing the variables of the example subject.
A poor doctor treats symptoms.
A good doctor treats the disease.
Best Regards,
Omnislash
I became increasingly distracted as this post wore on, my apologies to all. There are salient points within the argument that may or may not warrant separate threads. As noted by BosseDN, this thread was about the historical accuracy of the story of Jesus, and the extra-biblical evidence thereof. I'll try to keep any anti-Christian invective in check.
As far as I know, here are the purported extra-biblical references to Jesus of Nazareth:
- Josephus, in Testimonium Flavianum or Antiquities
- A Talmudic passage (Sanhedrin 43?)
- Pliny the Younger, in a letter to Trajan
- Cornelius Tacitus in Annals
- Suetonius in Life of Claudius and possibly Lives of the Ceasars
- Thallus, as quoted by Julius Africanus
- Phlegon, same as above
- Mara Bar-Serapion, in a letter to his son
- Lucian of Samosata, in True History
- A letter by Hadrian, preserved by Eusebius
Are there any I've missed? Please let me know...
Let me also mention, for the record, that my rejection of Jesus of Nazareth as a historical personage in no way constitutes a rejection that many Yeshuas lived and died in the region. Jospehus mentions (I believe) 20 or more in TF, many who were wandering rabbis or teachers. In that respect, LH's observation that the Christ figure is a composite is valid...although that only further illustrates the hypothesis that Jesus the Christ is a mythological character, IMHO.
Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
The inconsistencies were carefully worked in for the sake of verisimilitude? For clarity's sake, please state when you think these books were written, by whom, and to what purpose.
Well, yes...or perhaps mistranslation. I won't venture a guess as to whom or when, although the purpose was clear...to provide legitimacy to the early church and thus soldify it's position of political power in the waning of the Roman Empire.
Originally posted by lucifershammer
(btw David - apologies for any intended/unintended character slurs).
1. Was there one historical Jesus, or many? After all, Yeshua wasn't an uncommon name in 1st cent Palestine; nor was there any shortage of Messiahs. Is it possible that that the Biblical Jesus (from the perspective of his teachings, at least) is really a composite of multiple real teachers?
2. If the more miraculuous elements were redacted into Jesus's life, when and how did it happen?
Don't give it a second thought, LH.
1. Yes! I touched on this point above...
2. It is part of the legacy of saviours/godmen. There is some kind of allegorical information that is meant to be passed from epoch to epoch. I've made a point of noting that *this* version was created as a result of the 1st council. The Nicene Creed. It's what most (every?) Christian believes.
Originally posted by Palynka
All he did was speculate about real documents and the motivations behind those documents. Nothing more. Objections cannot be merely "A Christian did it" and when it isn't a Christian "A Christian faked it". It's too simple.
I agree, upon reflection, that I have presented a very simplistic argument. As I see it, the objections to the extra-biblical references are well documented. Any dissection by me might constitute little more than a copy & paste job. However, I think the source of these documents (or, in most cases allusions to their contents) is of utmost importance in this case.
Originally posted by telerion
True. This aspect of the case could be developed better. Maybe highlighting some of the key reasons why we should suspect the actual documents beyond simply being written by apologists.
GIVE ME AN 'A'!
I'll give it the ol' college try. Bear with me...I'll do them one-at-a-time, as I don't want to bite off more than my limited intellect can chew.
Here is the Josephus passage:
Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ, and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians so named from him are not extinct at this day.
The first reference to this passage that can be found comes from Eusebius, sometime in the early 4th C.E. If something this valuable had been available to Martyr (~150 C.E.), Clement (~200 C.E.), Tertullian (~220 C.E.) and Origen (~240 C.E.), it would have been presented, as they were all familair with his writings. Given that Josephus was a Jew, he would not refer to Jesus as the Christ or Messiah. Additionally, that reference interrupts the flow of the narrative. This is clearly a case of forgery by Eusebius, and undermines the reliability of any further apologetic discoveries he may have brought to light (with apologies again to Palynka!).
....
Originally posted by orfeoAbsolutely granted. Please remember though...more time passed between the first mention of Osiris in the 5th dynasty as a God of Agriculture and the events in Judea than has passed between Jesus and now. Perhaps the fathers of Christianity felt the people of such an advanced society (the Roman Empire having been the most technologically and civically advanced culture so far...) wouldn't fall for the old "gods-only" routine...it was necessary to humanize (anthropomorphize) him in order for the masses to accept what they were selling.
Now, which is more likely? (Yes, I am consciously using the same phrase as was used before)
- That someone took an entirely supernatural story about Gods and decided to tone it down by adding a distinctly non-glamorous human figure, or
- That someone took a historical figure and decided to beef him up with all sorts of wonderful supernatural attributes s ...[text shortened]... the accuracy of either story, so you can hardly accuse me of using a biased Christian viewpoint.
Originally posted by David CYou missed out the Gospel of Thomas, which is extra-biblical because it was excluded from the canon in 325 AD. It's a collection of sayings attributed to Jesus, oldest known manuscript 2nd century AD.
Are there any I've missed? Please let me know...
You might also be interested in the method used regarding the authorship of the Gospel of Mark:
http://www.abu.nb.ca/courses/NTIntro/Mark.htm.
You should also address Constantine's role in promoting Christianity. Note that he became emperor in 312 AD and that the Nicean editing conference took place 13 years thereafter. It's been claimed that Constantine adopted Christianity precisely because it resembled the old pagan religions, especially the cult of Sol Invictus. I'd argue that the spread of Christianity had much more to do with imperial decree than anything else. Note, too, that the Late Roman Empire was hard pressed to keep from falling apart. Diocletian had declared himself a god to preserve unity; after Constantine, Julian unsuccessfully attempted to revert to the old pagan ways.
Originally posted by David C regarding EusebiusBeep. Good to see the discussion dealing with specifics.
The first reference to this passage that can be found comes from Eusebius, sometime in the early 4th C.E. If something this valuable had been available to Martyr (~150 C.E.), Clement (~200 C.E.), Tertullian (~220 C.E.) and Origen (~240 C.E.), it would have been presented, as they were all familair with his writings. Given that Josephus w ...[text shortened]... d undermines the reliability of any further apologetic discoveries he may have brought to light.
David C, you assert that Martyr, Clement, Tertullian and Origen "were familiar with his [Eusebius'] writings", and conclude that their silence over quoting this *particular* passage (so temptingly amenable to their cause) is sufficient reason to doubt Eusebius' reliability.
The obvious questions are:
1) Did they actually have access to 'the full works of Josephus' in their local library?
2) Do we have the complete output of Martyr, Clement, Tertullian and Origen available to us?
Of course, if Martyr & Co. made *any other* reference to Josephus, then their silence on that particular quote is certainly more significant. But it would be unremarkable if the did not quote a portion of something they did not have access to.
[I'm not familiar with (any translation of) those works, and can't say if they ever reference other parts of Josephus or not.]
Another question is:
3) If Eusebius cites a textually modified or even invented quote from Josephus, how can we know if this was wilful misrepresentation, or if he was faithful to documents available to him at the time? To properly question his integrity, one would have to know the contents of his copy of Josephus.
These questions only stand in the way of your conclusion that 'Eusebius cannot be trusted'.
They don't stand in the way of doubting whether the passage is 100% pure Josephus. The first link on Google for 'Josephus Jesus', http://www.religiousstudies.uncc.edu/jdtabor/josephus-jesus.html summarises some research which thinks that the quote may well have been 'enhanced' but not wholly invented.
Interestingly, the un-enhanced version presented there (allegedly from an earlier Arabic text) is stripped of its religous overtones, and remains a fairly neutral and offhand remark about a minor political figure. As such, it remains a useful reference to a person called Jesus who was executed about whom it was claimed that he re-appeared after 3 days. That's enough to identify that particular Jesus with the one discussed in the New Testament.
A reference to Jesus as a minor political figure is certainly not at odds with the description of Jesus' public life in the gospels. Jesus is presented with an inferior power-relationship to the Jewish religious establishment of the day, which in turn had an inferior relationship to the governing Roman authority, which was in turn a somewhat non-prestigious post in the Roman Empire. Certainly, we read of him as being outspoken and confronting. But Pilate seems thoroughly unexcited to have Jesus in his court - this is not someone with whom he has had dialog over political issues.
There is some congruence here, don't you think? Josephus remarks on Jesus primarily because for the tail-effects of his being around, and what is said about him, rather than his achievements as a public figure. About this - about the scope of Jesus' political potency - there is some agreement between primary and secondary sources. And that his small political influence should be briefly noted by a political historian is not at all unusual.
For me at least, this adds up to some confidence that Jesus probably did exist and have a minor political influence in 1st-century Judea, and that the gospels are at least loosly based on a real-life person. I believe this point can be reached without a wholesale trust in the package of documentation that is the New Testament.
If you can get here, the question changes. Instead of "prove that it isn't totally fabricated", we more reasonably ask, "to what degree are these documents a reliable account of historical happenings"? Questions of the motive and world-view of the authors, the date of writing, and subsequent transmission of the text in days without photocopiers are all quite relevant.
Currently, you and LJ disagree on the dating of the gospels. Clearly, this matters. However, it's not necessarily straightforward. Personal world-view affects which arguments seem compelling for dating. For example in Matthew, Jesus is ascribed with predicting a Really Bad Time Ahead(TM) for Jerusalem. A really bad time of appropriate dimensions was had by Jerusalem in AD 70. Some who disbelieve a-priori in prediction assume that Matthew was therefore written after AD 70 - how else could the writer have known to make Jesus say that? Other people are happy that Jesus either made a genuine prediction, or was at the very least an astute observer of the times. Personally, I'm with the pre-AD 70 dating, mostly because I think that the author(s?) of Matthew could hardly have resisted pointing out how the prophecy actually came to pass (since they make some quite remarkable stretches in other places to do just this with other prophecies (Jesus doesn't make many himself)).
Sure, that's a dating taken with reference to the document's own contents, but frankly, having fragments that carbon date back to the same year as the 'internal evidence' suggests is a luxury not afforded by many historical documents at all. There is a 'grey period', between the earliest *possible* writing and the earliest *actual* copy. We must take what evidence we have and make a weighed judgement about the likely actual date of writing. Some theories about the meaning of the gospels prefer a lot of grey - a longer period in which unspecified corruptions and alterations of the original can occur. I find that these theories - relying as they do on a high rate of textual change which then suddenly throttles down to hardly-changing-at-all once physically-dated copies are available, and reserving the utmost skepticism for the gospels whilst giving utter credulity to any other source - are somewhat unconvincing.
Among these theories are that the Gospels started with a story about Osiris and it's(?) resurrection that was 'anthropomorphised' into a mythical account of an imaginary figure called Jesus.
I find this theory unconvincing for at least the following reasons:
1) Osiris is already 'anthropomorphised' - 'he' has a wife and children, engages in sexual behaviour, likes to get revenge on his enemies, and is subject to death (even if he does rise again). Exactly what changes would make Osiris more 'human-like'?
2) There is much about the gospel accounts that deal with non-Osiris themes - Jesus stonily assembling a whip on the temple steps and then turning it on the money-changers has no equivalent story or meaning from the Osiris legend that I'm aware of (although I'm not an expert).
3) It's difficult to identify the community of Osiris zealots which felt the need to contextualize the Osiris myth for the benefit of all the peoples. I know your friend accused the Council of Nicea of doing this, but as others have pointed out, Paul would be a more logical first-choice (at least the man wrote his own letters during his own lifetime, we can be fairly sure!). The difficulty of acknowledging Paul, is that Paul didn't have the Empire-Management motive that is ascribed to the Nicean crowd - in fact, he was ostracised by his own religious community for his anti-Jewish ideas. Almost all the apostles died young for their controversial and unwelcome beliefs. Who was it who felt so deeply about Osiris?
The only thing I can recommend is a firsthand inspection of the New Testament documents with your skepticism cap on, and try to first of all appreciate what they do and don't say. Then to judge modern thought about what they say by those texts themselves.
There are those of us who believe that by the time of the Council of Nicea, many had Missed The Point Completely (TM).
Peace,
David B.