Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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MrMacSon
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by MrMacSon »

Kapyong wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:59 pm Here is an improved list in response (I bumped Tatian to 98% on re-reading his personal account) :

'Paul'. 98%
Someone wrote several letters in mid 1st century which have come down to us as seven letters by 'Paul' - from primary evidence, although corrupt. Various cities around the North Eastern Mediterranean.
I'd put Paul at 20-60% and, like Robert M Price, I'd put him in the early 2nd century (Price says Paul is a composite figure).

I wouldn't call the Pauline epistles 'primary evidence' for a single Paul, active in the 2nd quarter of 1st c CE.

Kapyong wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:59 pm James. 95%
Paul knew someone in Jerusalem named James, also called the Lord's Brother (confirmed by secondary evidence.)
There are several James in the NT and none of them are referred to or described as 'Just'.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Paul the Uncertain
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Just as a worked example, what do you estimate about John the Baptist?

I reckon the best evidence for him is secondary (Josephus Antiquities, their lives don't overlap), and the rest of the evidence coincides with the Jesus corpus (both men are mentioned in the same four books which focus on ostensibly earthly events, and both are depicted in Acts as having had admirers who survived them). Arguably John also gets a boost from Paul. Paul doesn't mention him, but John's existence as Josephus described him is a candidate explanation for why Paul practiced baptism.
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maryhelena
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by maryhelena »

Kapyong wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 3:26 pm Gday all,
I've been following the discussion about methodology etc., but the fiddly bits of historical epistomology are getting a little dry for an amateur. So I'd like to go back to the basics as Neil suggested :
neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 9:52 pm The discussion [is], from my perspective, about what facts or events or persons might be considered historical. ...
So let's get to the basics:
What bloody happened. Who bloody existed. When? Where?
Let's go back to these very foundations - who can we say existed with a high level of confidence ?
(I've been struggling with wishy-washy terms like 'fairly certain' or 'almost certain', or 'quite likely etc., so I've decided to add rough estimates of probability of existence as percentages. Never 100% of course.)

Note to Bernard et al - I certainly am NOT claiming that ONLY these persons existed, just that they have fairly solid evidence. We can build on this foundation with others less likely.
I use the term 'primary evidence' to refer to contemporary evidence - if it's not contemporary then it's not primary.

The goal here is to see if we can reach a consensus on the foundational characters, and perhaps use it to discuss those less certain.


Considering the evidence - the early Christian writings and the early Greek, Jewish and Roman writings - here are the persons with solid foundations that I think we could all agree to with a reasonably high level of confidence :

Paul. 98%
Paul wrote letters mid 1st century - from primary evidence, although corrupt. Various cities around the Eastern Mediterranean.
Words in a writing do not confirm historicity.

James. 95%
Paul knew someone in Jerusalem named James, also called the Lord's Brother (confirmed by secondary evidence.)
Paul is, as someone once wrote (Price I think) a paper apostle.

Peter. 95%
Paul wrote of someone in Jerusalem called Peter, otherwise unknown.

...
Josephus wrote about a John who baptized - words in a writing do not confirm historicity.

Storytelling is a great medium for advancing ideas but it is not a medium that can accurately reflect reality. It contains only an impression, an insight or a perspective. Arguing over words, over interpretation of words, can amount to, in the search for early christian origins, a colossal waste of time. It is by stepping outside the story and allowing evidence based history to shine a light upon the story - rather than hoping ones interpretation of the story will shine light upon history - that has the potential to move along the search for early christian origins.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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Kapyong
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Kapyong »

Gday all,
Kapyong wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:59 pm'Paul'. 98%
Someone wrote several letters in mid 1st century which have come down to us as seven letters by 'Paul' - from primary evidence, although corrupt. Various cities around the North Eastern Mediterranean.
MrMacSon wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:40 pm I'd put Paul at 20-60% and, like Robert M Price, I'd put him in the early 2nd century (Price says Paul is a composite figure).
I wouldn't call the Pauline epistles 'primary evidence' for a single Paul, active in the 2nd quarter of 1st c CE.
Crikey. That's a big reef to hit so early in the journey. Surely the mostly likely explanation for the Paulines, even allowing for later composite accretions, is an originating single person called Paul in mid 1st C? I'll read up on Price, and put a pin in that for now.
Kapyong wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 4:59 pm James. 95%
Paul knew someone in Jerusalem named James, also called the Lord's Brother (confirmed by secondary evidence.)
MrMacSon wrote: Sun Sep 24, 2017 7:40 pm There are several James in the NT and none of them are referred to or described as 'Just'.
No, but both Paul and Josephus use the term 'Lord's Brother'. Presumably Paul did not know, or did not want to refer to his competitor James as 'Just'.


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Kapyong
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Kapyong »

Gday,
Paul the Uncertain wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:07 am Just as a worked example, what do you estimate about John the Baptist?

I reckon the best evidence for him is secondary (Josephus Antiquities, their lives don't overlap), and the rest of the evidence coincides with the Jesus corpus (both men are mentioned in the same four books which focus on ostensibly earthly events, and both are depicted in Acts as having had admirers who survived them). Arguably John also gets a boost from Paul. Paul doesn't mention him, but John's existence as Josephus described him is a candidate explanation for why Paul practiced baptism.
I am increasingly realising why scholars/historians do not pin their conclusions down to percentages. I should just stick with relatively loose English words and say that John the Baptist probably existed - due to the lack of primary evidence.

But being stuck to this tar baby now, I'll say it's a 66% chance that JtB was historical.

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Kapyong
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Kapyong »

Gday maryhelena,
maryhelena wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:56 amIt is by stepping outside the story and allowing evidence based history to shine a light upon the story - rather than hoping ones interpretation of the story will shine light upon history - that has the potential to move along the search for early christian origins.
Thanks, glad you agree :)

So do you agree that these persons named above are supported with evidence based history ?
That they represent the most solid layer of our history of Christian origins ?

What do you think about whether we have writings from a mid-first C writer called 'Paul' ?

Kapyong
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Paul the Uncertain »

Kapyong
But being stuck to this tar baby now, I'll say it's a 66% chance that JtB was historical.
Fair enough.
I am increasingly realising why scholars/historians do not pin their conclusions down to percentages. I should just stick with relatively loose English words ...
There is a middle ground, and a view that I "advocate" outside of statistics (besides its home turf, statistics is also applied in niches in many fields - use Bayes liberally there, IMO).

George Polya's book abstracts most of what's useful in Bayes outside of statistics using very few numbers and relatively tight English words :) .

The book is readable, short, has only one known technical lapse (on a peripheral point), and the progress of knowledge since Polya died has been kind to it (mainly that he didn't distinguish between the truth of a hypothesis and its "usefulness," but then a lot of people still don't).

And now it's free online:

https://archive.org/details/Patterns_Of ... ference_2_
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Secret Alias »

I would actually argue that Jesus has a greater chance of being historical than John the Baptist. At least the Jewish sources know who Jesus is. It is very odd that someone who apparently baptized 'all of Judea' is complete unknown to Jews. Also it is unclear what value 'baptism' has or could have had in Judaism. As I said John the Baptist has never made sense to me. The fact that the Marcionites did not know him either seems to add to my suspicion that 'John' was the very well known figure of John Hyrcanus who forcibly converted (and likely baptized) the neighbors of Judea to some sort of Jewish proselyte status including Samaritans. The original gospel perhaps made reference to 'John's baptism' in a self-evident manner which later Gentiles couldn't explain hence the invention of a 'John the baptist.'

If the original form of the gospel was known to the Marcionites and that gospel did not make reference to a historical 'John the baptist' - likely just to a 'John baptism' or 'baptism of John' - then the case for a historical John the Baptist is weakened immensely. Josephus is hardly a reliable witness given the likelihood as Cohen and others have noted that the core of Jewish War developed out of an 'outline' perhaps written in Aramaic which roughly corresponds to the material held in common with Vita. In other words both the gospel and Josephus existed in ur-formats that had no reference to John the Baptist - an allusion which was added later as other Christianized elements were added.

Moreover Antiquities as a project does not seem to fit within the interests of the historical Josephus. Why an Aramaic speaking Pharasaic Jewish rebel commander would have wanted to set out to imitate a thoroughly Hellenized 'art project' viz. a conscious imitation of Dionysius's Roman Antiquities is a laughable claim. Clearly the synergoi had this as their (or perhaps 'his' i.e. the editor's) art project. Josephus was a puppet of a later Hellenized Jew of the second century which a purpose to reshape the history of Judaism along the lines acceptable to greater Roman society likely around 147 CE.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
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maryhelena
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by maryhelena »

Kapyong wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2017 2:08 am Gday maryhelena,
maryhelena wrote: Mon Sep 25, 2017 12:56 amIt is by stepping outside the story and allowing evidence based history to shine a light upon the story - rather than hoping ones interpretation of the story will shine light upon history - that has the potential to move along the search for early christian origins.
Thanks, glad you agree :)
:thumbup:

So do you agree that these persons named above are supported with evidence based history ?
That they represent the most solid layer of our history of Christian origins ?
The New Testament is an origin story - the 'christian' figures within that story are just that - literary figures - hence are not historical figures.

What do you think about whether we have writings from a mid-first C writer called 'Paul' ?

Kapyong
We have the writings - someone or some people wrote them. Paul is a literary figure.

Trying to extract early christian history from the New Testament origin story is to do it's writers a disservice.

All that can be said, regarding the writers of the christian origin story, is that they sought to encapsulate in story form the meaning, or relevance, of what it was in their history that they found to be important. Important for moving forward their theological/spiritual or philosophical understanding. In other words; historical realities necessitated a new 'christian' world view: historical realities come first - afterwords it's romantic recreation in a christian origin story.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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Re: Who existed ? When ? Where ?

Post by Secret Alias »

But surely 'Pilate' is a historical figure, 'Herod' too. Nicodemus was undoubtedly a historical figure too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicodemus_ben_Gurion. Berenice (Veronica) the lady that wiped Jesus's face was likely in the ur-gospel narrative only to be removed and preserved in the Passion plays. The idea that the gospels are pure fiction is untenable. They seem to be rather mythologized history on some level. If one accepts a purely divine Jesus as the original protagonist it seems to be a number of historical figures interacting with a divinity. If you think that the gospel author knew Jesus to be born of Mary then a historical figure who was later deified. I do not see any convincing evidence that the original gospel writer knew Jesus to be born of Mary and find it hard to believe that he stumbled across a historical Jesus with no idea of his lineage or origin. The reason Jesus is not given a background is because the original author (Paul?) did not believe he had a birth mother.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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