The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

[neilgodfrey]

Neil

And of course we look for the author's interest in assuring us of the reliability of his account, giving us some idea of his sources, sharing and acknowledging our scepticism when relating most remarkable events, etc. Not that these are guarantees --- but such factors go in to the big bag of variables that need to be considered in any reading.

And yet, a staple of counterapologetics is to mock Paul for saying that he is not lying. Perhaps rightly so, perhaps unfairly. We lack the other side of the correspondence, so for all we know, he was accused of lying. The mockery is that "I am not lying" is just what a liar would say.

By "looking for assurance of the author's reliability" I was thinking of the standard tools historians use, like informing us of his sources, expressions of scepticism when appropriate, etc. And of course an author can lie about even these, that's why I mentioned the "big bag of variables" rather than go on to a full discussion of all the caveats and details of the method. I'd rather address details in small doses as they arise in a conversational format.

I keep coming back to Steve Mason's discussion but there are many others who practice the same thing: "lying" or "deception", deliberate or unconscious, is all part of what researchers work at detecting in their sources.

If you prefer, the heuristic can be shorn of its tie to formal game theory, "All communication is self-serving."

Exactly so. Hence the necessity of knowing something of the provenance of a source, author included, in order to know how to interpret it. (I did not understand the couple of paragraphs about game theory etc that preceded the sentence I have responded to here.)

If "historical method" is to believe more readily some unverifiable claim because other unverifiable claims were made at the same time, then "historical method" needs some work.

That's not how sound historical method works, in my understanding.

In the meantime, among the many things I respect Mark for is not wasting my time with irrelevancies that could not possibly change a rational person's estimate of the truth of what he asserts. (I have no idea whether achieving his reader's belief was among Mark's goals, I only know the uses to which his writing has been put.)

. . . . .

For example, I love it that Mark identifies Simon of Cyrene's kids (a fact claim) and doesn't waste my time connecting the dots babbling about whether they are among his sources. His claim can accomplish only one thing: to establish that it is possible for him to know what happened that day, and the claim is self-proving as to that possibility (yes, it is possible, no, I don't know what any "Simon of Cyrene" would tell me, if I could ask him, which I can't).

Sorry but I don't understand your approach here. We seem to have quite different approaches to the gospel of Mark, bringing to our reading of it quite different assumptions and interests.

[neilgodfrey]

Mason is emphasising that in the absence of independent corroboration, although most of the raw facts in an account may well be based on actual events, the selection and presentation of those events by the uncorroborated source is likely to prevent the reconstruction of a reliable narrative by a modern historian.

Yes. That principle is all too rarely thought through and applied consistently.

[neilgodfrey]

As a result, I eliminated most of the material in gMark & Q, . . .

It appears to me that you approached the gospels with the view that by peeling away all the arguably nonhistorical layers, and finding a core that could offer a plausible historical explanation, then that core was a valid historical reconstruction.

[DCHindley]

I think you are twisting the evidence.

If Paul thought that crucifixion of a messiah was an embarrassment because Jews thought a messiah could never be crucified then we would expect Paul to make arguments at some point addressing that concern. He doesn't. He nowhere attempts to address a belief that a messiah could not possibly be crucified. But he does address the controversy over his teaching that the crucifixion of the messiah meant an end to the law for salvation for gentiles. That's where the offence was.

"Paul" does not appear to be of a single mind. I suspect that "Pauline" letters, having nothing to do with any person called "anointed" (christ) or "Jesus", were redacted by a later editor who did believe that a certain Jesus, with the title "Christ," was actually a divine entity who performed a symbolic sacrifice for mankind.

All that such a later editor has to do is rationalize away any historical Jesus as immaterial, the symbolic sacrifice having much more significance, so much so that it proved that Jesus, as Christ, was actually a divine being, and not a mere mortal who can be erased from history by an execution! The death of Jesus is no longer an embarrassment, but a mystery to be comprehended by initiates. As I like to say: "A rationalization a day keeps the dissonance away!"

Since this hypothetical editor was making comments on the original text in light of his belief in the myth of a divine Jesus Christ, these comments do not have to "explain" the significance of his death. His intent is to redact traditional reading material of some faction that had been absorbed into the Christian mystical movement, to make it more consonant with their newly adopted superstition.

He simply assumed that the readers of his updated Pauline books will be of similar mind with him with regard to a mystical role for a divine Christ, so no apologetics to negate a human death were required, just assumed. He was "preaching to the choir."

Unfortunately (maybe fortunately), he did not do a very good job of ironing out the obvious contradictions of world views of his own group and that of the original writer's group. That his additions, in time, became very much beloved by Christians, and adopted "as-is," does not make them truly "Paul's."

DCH

[neilgodfrey]

The death of Jesus is no longer an embarrassment, but a mystery to be comprehended by initiates.

I still don't see any evidence that anyone was ever embarrassed over the crucifixion of Jesus.

The shame and offence were badges of glory, grounds for boasting, as they were with respect to any godly and heroic martyr.

----

On another point entirely, Paul places lots of value on the blood of Christ, yet I have just been reading something that points out that crucifixion is not a particularly bloody way to die. If you want lots of blood, cut the throat of a lamb. The suggestion was that Paul was overlaying an existing paschal lamb saviour with a human crucified one.

[MrMacSon]

"Paul" does not appear to be of a single mind.

Exactly.

I suspect that "Pauline" letters, having nothing to do with any person called ... "Jesus"...

I agree.

[the "Pauline" letters] were redacted by a later editor who did believe that a certain Jesus, with the title "Christ," was actually a divine entity who performed a symbolic sacrifice for mankind.

There are several possible scenarios. The Pauline letters could have been about a celestial or other-world entity (who may have been called 'Christ').

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil

Hence the necessity of knowing something of the provenance of a source, ...

And if you don't know all that, and can't find out, then you do something else instead. Perhaps that involves accepting in advance that confidence in most conclusions will be low. Perhaps that involves accepting domain projections ("If so-and-so lived, then he more likely than not hadn't served in a Roman army"). Perhaps that involves "best-supported hypothesis" reasoning, regardless of how well supported, by how much better supported than the runner-up, or how confidently the best supported conclusion might be held.

It is possible that particular historians might make accurate observations of some aspects of what they do and what they see their colleagues do, and yet not have complete knowledge of what would find acceptance in the field. For example, if someone has often had the luxury of "knowing something of the provenance of a source," then perhaps one cannot say authoritatively how to proceed when one doesn't.

We seem to have quite different approaches to the gospel of Mark, bringing to our reading of it quite different assumptions and interests.

Up to a point, but I'd have thought we might share a few interests as well. However, that Mark names people he identifies as Simon of Cyrene's kids isn't an assumption. Developing hypotheses about why anyone would do that isn't an assumption, either. That doing so bears chiefly on the possibility of Mark's reliability about the facts of the day is also not an assumption.

[davidbrainerd]

There was also no crucifixtion

PROVIDE SOURCES

Idiocy and dishonesty are not credible methods of explaining what may or may not have been plausible in the past.

Idiocy and dishonesty are not credible but you just employed both of them in quoting me massively out of context.

Simon and the Simonians are pure fiction. Irenaeus, the peddler of our inerrant canon, including Acts, betrays his own principle of inerrancy to make Act's fictional yet repentant Simon Magus into an unrepentant fountainhead of heresy, complete with fictional genealogies linking every non-Catholic group's origin to this fictional man. Simon's doctrine? "There was no Jesus; it was just me in a magical Halloween costume. There was also no crucifixtion, just a couple of my buddies and some Katchup." Yet somehow every sect, including Marcion who believed and taught Jesus was real and fhe crucifixion was real, is supposedly derived from "Simon's teaching." Pure fiction, all of it.

In other words, I was paraphrasing what Irenaeus tells us was his fictional Simon Magus' theology. I was not saying in my own person "there was no crucifixion."

If you couldn't even interpret my very clear paragraph in English honestly, why should anyone trust you to honestly interpret patristic writers in Latin and Greek?

Uneducated bafoons rhetoric...

You're talking about your own self there.

[neilgodfrey]

Neil

Hence the necessity of knowing something of the provenance of a source, ...

And if you don't know all that, and can't find out, then you do something else instead. Perhaps that involves accepting in advance that confidence in most conclusions will be low. Perhaps that involves accepting domain projections ("If so-and-so lived, then he more likely than not hadn't served in a Roman army"). Perhaps that involves "best-supported hypothesis" reasoning, regardless of how well supported, by how much better supported than the runner-up, or how confidently the best supported conclusion might be held.

Here is where we differ. No, we cannot lower or modify a valid method if we don't have enough material from which to arrive at supportable answers. It means there are some things we simply don't know and we cannot change that. We cannot substitute ignorance with hypotheses that cannot find any means of testing or falsification.

However, that Mark names people he identifies as Simon of Cyrene's kids isn't an assumption. Developing hypotheses about why anyone would do that isn't an assumption, either. That doing so bears chiefly on the possibility of Mark's reliability about the facts of the day is also not an assumption.

Sorry but I simply do not understand your last two sentences. Do you mean that hypotheses are not assumptions? If so, it seems to me that the sort of hypotheses you are talking about are untestable, and if so, merely pointless speculation.

Explanations (hypotheses) require some verification, substantiation, from the data being investigated or they are mere speculation and not serious inquiry.

[hakeem]

The Emperor was also called the "son of god" by the same Hellenist that turned unto Christians. So your point is non sequitur and not even relevant.

An Emperor called the "son of god" is not evidence of an historical Jesus since it was also believed myth Gods had sons and even daughters.

In Greek/Roman religion of the 1st century Jupiter was believed to have sons.

Christian writings of antiquity clearly state Jesus of Nazareth had no human father.

There is no such thing as a best case for Jesus' historicity when there is no actual historical evidence.

Jesus was always a figure of belief--never a figure of history.