Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

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GakuseiDon
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Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Threads in this series

Thread titleLink
1Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 1 of 12: Sections 1 thru 3, What I liked and didn't likeviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10555
2Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 2 of 12: Section 4.1 Epiphanius's Nazoriansviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10557
3Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 3 of 12: Section 4.2 Ascension of Isaiah's Celestial Crucifixionviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10562
4Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 4 of 12: Section 4.3 Plutarch's Osirisviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10565
5Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 5 of 12: Section 5 Carrier's Rank-Raglan Reference Set
6Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCEviewtopic.php?f=3&t=10568
7Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 7 of 12: Section 6.2 1 Clement
8Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 8 of 12: Section 6.3 Ignatius
9Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 9 of 12: Section 6.4 Hegesippus
10Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 10 of 12: Section 6.5 Evidence of Acts
11Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 11 of 12: Section 6.6 Evidence of the Epistles
12Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 12 of 12: Section 7 Conclusion

It'll take me a while to write up my "Part 5 Carrier's Rank-Raglan Reference Set", so I'll skip it for now and post Part 6.1 first. From this review onwards, I will look at ALL of the arguments in OHJ that contribute odds against historicity. In this thread, I will examine his argument that the Babylonian Talmud shows Jesus Christ living around 70 BCE.

In this section of the video, I'll go over ALL of Carrier's arguments that contribute odds against historicity. The first one is what Carrier calls the "twin traditions" of when Jesus lived. While mainstream Christians believed that Jesus was executed around 30 CE, Carrier proposes that there was another set of heretical Christians who claimed that Jesus was executed around 70 BCE.

[SLIDE]
ASSERTION: Evidence suggests that there was a First Century non-Canonical Gospel that narrated a Jesus born of the virgin Mary and executed under Alexander Jannaeus around 70 BCE (page 284)

ANALYSIS: Carrier uses the Babylonian Talmud, which is much too late and unreliable as a historical source for early Christianity. He also uses Epiphanius, whom I showed earlier did not in fact write about a sect of Christians who believed Jesus lived around 70 BCE.

VERDICT: Strong Pushback. The evidence doesn't support Carrier's assertion.

CONTRIBUTION TO ODDS:
Carrier's Best Odds for Historicity: 4/5
Carrier's Worst Odds for Historicity: 1/2

Carrier argues that evidence suggests that there was a First Century CE non-canonical Gospel that narrated a Jesus born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem and executed under Alexander Jannaeus in 70 BCE. He uses two sources for his argument: Epiphanius and the Babylonian Talmud. I've already shown that Carrier has misread Epiphanius on this. But what about the Babylonian Talmud?

Carrier explains this source:

OHJ, p.274

This includes one very late source, the Babylonian Talmud, completed in the fifth century (the early Middle Ages), which I will consider only because it says things very different from what the NT does and therefore would appear to be independent of the NT-unless the things it says are polemical inventions created in response to the NT (or some other Gospels outside the canon). In fact, a common conclusion scholars reach is that because it is so late, its contents don't in fact trace back to any actual first-century source at all; although, as l will show, that would make its contents very hard to explain. I suspect it reflects (and responds to) a first-century non-canonical Gospel (as I will explain in the next chapter). Its relevance, either way, is limited but not lacking.

Carrier recognises the lateness of the source, but he argues that if there were sects of Christians placing the Jesus character in more than one time period, then this would be unlikely under historicity and so contribute to mythicism:

OHJ, p. 285

How can the descendants of the original sect of Christians have come to believe Jesus lived and died a hundred years before our Gospels say he did? It is nearly impossible to imagine how such a doctrine could have developed. Unless there was no historical Jesus. Then he could be placed in history wherever each sect desired.

OHJ, p. 536

... the peculiar existence of two separate traditions about when Jesus lived (placing him a century apart) leaves us with a factor of 2 to 1 against historicity (or 50% against 100%), or at least 4 to 5 (80% against 100%).

Carrier explains that scholars believe that the references to Jesus in the Talmud were hidden under a number of "code names", though there is disagreement about how firm the associations are. Carrier references Robert Van Voorst's "Jesus Outside the New Testament" a number of times, and I'll also use the same work to provide some background.

Van Voorst examines a number of code names in the Talmud that scholars propose might refer to Jesus: "Ben Stada", "Balaam," "a certain one," "Ben Pandera" (or "Pantera") and "Jesus the Nazarene". Van Voorst rules out the first three -- Ben Stada, "Balaam" and "a certain one" -- and then looks at the code names "Ben Pantera" and "Jesus the Nazarene", both of which Van Voorst views as referring to Jesus Christ.

Carrier himself looks at three code names: "Ben Stada", "Ben Pandera" and "Jesus the Nazarene". He writes about the first two code names:

OHJ, p. 283

This Jesus was also known as 'Ben Stada', mean­ing 'Son of the Unfaithful', a woman named Mary... Ben Stada, who was thus also known as 'Ben Pandera'
...
Van Voorst insists 'Ben Stada' is not our Jesus, but none of his argu­ments are valid.(7)

I looked at Carrier's footnote for (7) and it read:

7. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament, p. 116; he almost immediately contradicts himself and says (without explanation) that the passages about Ben Stada are about Jesus (p. 120). I can only assume he changed his mind and didn't edit the text to reflect which position he held at the time of publication. A confusing error indeed. In any event, his first opinion is wrong.

Now, knowing how Carrier has a habit of misreading sources, I immediately thought, "I bet a million dollars that Van Voorst didn't contradict himself." And I was not disappointed. Carrier had indeed misread Van Voorst. Van Voorst doesn't contradict himself between pages 116 and 120. He is in fact writing about two separate code names: "Ben Stada" and "Ben Pantera":

Van Voorst, p. 108
We begin with the passages featuring the supposed code names "Ben Stada", "Balaam," and "a certain one," which some argue are references to Jesus.

Van Voorst, p. 114
To begin with, modern scholars are correct to discount most "code" references to Jesus, especially "a certain one," Balaam, and Ben Stada.

Van Voorst, p. 116
Neither can Ben Stada be a code name for Jesus...

This matches with Carrier's comment that Van Voorst doesn't see Ben Stada as being a code name for Jesus. Van Voorst continues, this time writing about Ben Pantera:

Van Voorst, p. 117
Our results so far have been negative, but the final proposed code name, Ben Pantera (sometimes given as Ben Pandera) is reasonably identified with Jesus.

Van Voorst, p. 120
Claims of Jesus' illegitimacy and especially the Ben Pantera identification presuppose an earlier, well-developed Christian tradition of the virginal conception.

Van Voorst, p. 121
We have seen how the tradition of Jesus' illegitimacy, and the Ben Pantera story related to it, arose from the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth. This doctrine was not explicitly formulated by Christians until near the end of the first century (Matthew and Luke), and even then may not have been widely shared as a leading doctrine by other Christians...

So, no contradiction at all. It's very clear that Van Voorst is stating that Ben Stada was not a reference to Jesus Christ, but that Ben Pandera was. It's another example of Carrier's sloppy research, and it underlines the need to ALWAYS check Carrier's references to ancient sources and modern scholars.

Van Voorst believes the story about Mary having an affair that results in the birth of Jesus indicates that the story in the Talmud was sourced some time after the First Century. We can see similar accusations in the writings of Celsus, as captured by Origen. If those accusations were indeed a reaction to the story of the Virgin Birth, it suggests a Second Century CE origin to those accusations.

The final code name is "Jesus the Nazarene". This is generally accepted by scholars as being a reference to Jesus Christ, and to a Jesus Christ living in 70 BCE, in the time of Alexander Jannaeus. As Carrier notes:

OHJ, p. 284-5

... the point is that here we have knowledge of a completely different gospel tradition placing Jesus the Nazarene, apostate, 'son of the virgin Mary', under Alexander Jannaeus, with a different crucifixion account. occurring in a different location...

The apostate 'Jesus' under Jannaeus is still explicitly identified as 'Jesus the Nazarene' and as being stoned and crucified 'on the day before the Passover' (on 'a Sabbath eve' even) for 'practicing magic and leading Israel astray'. So we clearly see that the Jews who compiled the Babylo­nian Talmud only knew of a Jesus executed under Jannaeus, not any Jesus executed under Pilate. And Epiphanius confirms that some Torah-obser­vant Christians, from the original sect of Christianity, actually did preach that. So there was some sort of Gospel circulating in the East, from a more conservative and faithful descendant of the original Christian sect, that narrated a Jesus born of the virgin Mary (as the Jewish polemic in the Talmud entails these Christians were claiming) in Bethlehem (according to the Christians themselves who adopted this version of events) and executed under Jannaeus for working miracles and 'leading people astray'.

Was there indeed some sort of Gospel by an original Christian sect that narrated a Jesus born of the virgin Mary, in Bethlehem and executed under Alexander Jannaeus? I think inferring the existence of an original Christian sect, much less a Gospel by them, is a step further than the evidence can bear. Certainly the Epiphanius side of Carrier's argument doesn't support this view at all, as I showed earlier.

So what do we make of a reference to Jesus Christ living in 70 BCE? I'll turn now to Earl Doherty, who wrote on this topic in his "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man". Doherty is a mythicist, so may be biased against finding any kind of historical Jesus in early sources. But I've found that he rarely if ever misreads his sources when referencing modern scholarship. Doherty writes:

Earl Doherty, "Jesus: Neither God Nor Man", p. 521

Two other passages in that Talmud refer to Jesus the Nazarene. The first (in Sanhedrin 107b) has Jesus excommunicated, concluding with the line:

And a teacher has said, "Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and led astray and deceived Israel."

The latter is a clear reference to the Christian Jesus, but it is appended to an anecdote about someone who was excommunicated for inspecting a woman too closely. In its present form, the anecdote specifies "Jesus the Nazarene" as the one excommunicated, by the rabbi he was traveling with. But it cannot in any way represent a real or older Jesus tradition, for we can identify earlier versions of certain of its component elements, and they have nothing to do with Jesus.


Earl Doherty, p. 522

A similar situation is found in another obscure passage of the Babylonian Talmud. In Sanhedrin 103a, the meaning of a Psalm verse is being discussed, one option being "that thou mayest not have a son or disciple who burns his food in public like Yeshu the Nazarene." The same phrase is included in another passage to offer a meaning for a different Psalm verse. But it happens that we have a quotation of the second passage in a lexicon of rabbinic texts compiled in the early 12th century, known as the Arukh; there our concluding line does not mention Jesus at all, but rather Manasseh (king of Judah 698-642 BCE)... the Arukh predates by more than two centuries the oldest extant manuscript of the Babylonian Talmud (the "Munich" manuscript of 1342) which contains the reading of Yeshu ha-Notzri...
...
Indeed, one of the difficulties in evaluating the rabbinic literature is the fact that we have no early manuscripts. The oldest of the Mishnah dates from 1400, the Tosefta from about 1150, the Palestinian Talmud from 1299, the Babylonian from 1342, with portions from the late 12th century.

So, we have two hypotheses on the table to explain the references in the Babylonian Talmud:

1. There was some sort of Gospel circulating from an early Christian sect, that narrated a Jesus born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem and executed under Jannaeus. The writers of the Talmud decided to include this information by writing about a Jesus who was a sorcerer and a Mary who cheated on her husband, because they wanted to take jabs at Christians and their Christ story.

2. Over a thousand year period, texts were subtly rewritten to take jabs at Christians and their Christ story.

I think the evidence supports the latter hypothesis.

Last edited by GakuseiDon on Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:31 am, edited 7 times in total.
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by mlinssen »

While I occasionally bash your head against the wall, I do appreciate you Don

So just a kind warning: will you take care not to invest too much into the bottomless pit that is Carrier? Or Ehrman for that matter?
Both are in it - meaning precisely in the spot where they are right now - for the money alone, and they will write and act whatever renders most. They don't care about arguments they use, on the contrary: the more dubious their expressions, the bigger the waves those cause

And I can tell you from experience what the fate is of those who are absolutely right yet completely unknown: they just simply get ignored, and a deafening silence is their share alone
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

mlinssen wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:11 am While I occasionally bash your head against the wall, I do appreciate you Don
I thought I'd felt a slight breeze on my head... :cheers: Thanks!
mlinssen wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:11 amAnd I can tell you from experience what the fate is of those who are absolutely right yet completely unknown: they just simply get ignored, and a deafening silence is their share alone
I don't expect to get much feedback here. Carrier has few fans on this board. Though I hope people point out where I'm wrong! Anyway, this is a labour of love. I'm not looking to get my hands on any of that huge mythicist loot that's out there.
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by Giuseppe »

It escapes me how placing Jesus under Ianneus would be equivalent
to take jabs at Christians and their Christ story.
At contrary, we have clear evidence in Celsus of an accusation against the Christians because their religion was a new cult, ergo a mere superstitio.

Hence Carrier's point stands all (even if he is wrong on Epiphanius): the mention of Ianneus is a real embarrassment for the traditional dating under Pilate.

As to mlinssen's criticism against Carrier, I think that all the criticisms against Carrier are immensely rational only if one rejects the authenticity of the epistles. But insofar one concede their authenticity, then I recognize that Carrier has justly the monopoly on mythicism.

Obviously, I am not sure about Paul being authentic or not. I would like to read Detering and I wonder why there is not a pious person who can translate his works from German..
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by ABuddhist »

Wioth all due respect, there is a tradition of equating Ben Pantera and Ben Stada: "The later printed texts of TB Shabbat 104b read as follows: "R. Eliezer said to the Sages: Isn't it true that Ben Sṭara brought witchcraft out of Egypt by marking on his flesh? They said to him: He was an idiot, and one does not bring proofs from idiots". Here the sugya ends in the later printed editions. The continuation of the sugya, as represented by all manuscripts and the earliest printed text, reads as follows: "[Was he] the son of Sṭara (or: Sṭada)? Wasn't he rather the son of Pandira! Rav Ḥisda said: Sṭara was [his mother's] husband; Pandira was [his mother's] lover. [But his mother's] husband was Papos the son of Judah! Rather, his mother was Sṭara (or Sṭada), his father was Pandira. [But] his mother was Mary the hairdresser (magdala)! Rather [she was called Sṭada] because of what they say in Pumbedita: She cheated (saṭa da) on her husband." The name "Ben Pandira" was understood in the Babylonian Talmud as a euphemism for Jesus (cf. Tosefta Ḥul. 2:24, TB Av. Za. 16b-17a). It is fairly clear, therefore, that this entire talmudic passage is an anti-Christian polemic, ridiculing the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus (see D. Rokeah, "Ben Sṭara is Ben Pantira")."

Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ben-stada

So when Van Voorst says that ben Pantera was Jesus, then he, without qualififying that statement, can be understood as saying that Ben Stada is Jesus.
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by mlinssen »

GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:23 am I don't expect to get much feedback here. Carrier has few fans on this board. Though I hope people point out where I'm wrong! Anyway, this is a labour of love. I'm not looking to get my hands on any of that huge mythicist loot that's out there.

In my critical review I chose a representative selection of the worst mistakes, in order to illustrate the problem. Some mistook that as a complete list, and suggested those weren’t enough errors to condemn the book. Although they certainly were (not all of them, but many of them are damning and render the book useless at its one stated purpose), they are not a complete list, but just the tip of the iceberg. And that is the bigger problem. The errors I chose to document and discuss are examples of consistent trends throughout the book, of careless thinking, careless writing, and often careless research. This means there are probably many more errors than I saw, because for much of the book I was trusting him to tell me correctly what he found from careful research; but the rest of the book illustrates that I can’t trust him to correctly convey information about this subject or to have done careful research.

Richard Carrier, Bart Ehrman and the Quest of the Historical Jesus of Nazareth

Observe the core of Carrier; what a decent human being would have written is the following:

In my critical review I chose a representative selection of the worst mistakes, in order to illustrate the problem. Some mistook that as a complete list, and suggested those weren’t enough errors to condemn the book. I omitted to state that it was not an exhaustive list, but it was more than complete enough for a "condemnation", so to say

All the rest is self-pedestaling, self-caressing, making up excuses, distracting from the problem at hand (failing to state it's not an exhaustive list), and throwing an awful lot of text and sand in the eyes:

"Although they certainly were (not all of them, but many of them are damning and render the book useless at its one stated purpose), they are not a complete list, but just the tip of the iceberg. And that is the bigger problem. The errors I chose to document and discuss are examples of consistent trends throughout the book, of careless thinking, careless writing, and often careless research. This means there are probably many more errors than I saw, because for much of the book I was trusting him to tell me correctly what he found from careful research; but the rest of the book illustrates that I can’t trust him to correctly convey information about this subject or to have done careful research." Blahblahblahblahblah

This is how a toxic person looks like in writing. There are a few examples here on the forum as well: they'll spend a word or two on the topic at hand, and then draw out their own agenda and ramble on for eternity about their own peeves that are usually completely irrelevant to the initial point

If it's a labour of love, then what exactly do you intend to create?
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

ABuddhist wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:16 am Wioth all due respect, there is a tradition of equating Ben Pantera and Ben Stada:
That's true, but the association seems to be literary; i.e. editors thought they were referring to the same person when they were probably two separate people. Anyway, Van Voorst clearly treats them separately. (From memory he acknowledges that there is a literary association there.)
ABuddhist wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:16 am So when Van Voorst says that ben Pantera was Jesus, then he, without qualififying that statement, can be understood as saying that Ben Stada is Jesus.
Van Voorst does qualify it, as I've quoted him above. If Carrier had read between p. 116 (Ben Stada =/= Jesus) and p. 120 (Ben Pandera = Jesus), he would have picked it up.

Van Voorst clearly treats the names separately. On Page 117: "the final proposed code name, Ben Pantera (sometimes given as Ben Pandera) is reasonably identified with Jesus".

There is no reason for Carrier to have missed that if he'd read the pages between p. 116 and p. 120. He should have done so, rather than jump to the assumption that Van Voorst had suddenly decided to change his mind. Surely that in itself should have made him suspicious enough to check those intervening pages?
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

Giuseppe wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:10 am It escapes me how placing Jesus under Ianneus would be equivalent
to take jabs at Christians and their Christ story.
Perhaps I need to word that better. The "jab" is calling Jesus a sorcerer and Mary an adulteress.

If Carrier is right that there was a sect of Christians who believed in a Christ born in Bethlehem and a Virgin Mary and crucified in 70 BCE, and that they had a Gospel to that effect, I think it's safe to assume that its depiction of Jesus and Mary would have been positive. So the writers of the Talmud have taken that Gospel and produced negative spins on the story. Why? To take jabs at Christians and their "70 BCE" Christ story.

Of course, the same is true if the Talmud writers were addressing orthodox Christians. Whenever they wrote or updated the Babylonian Talmud, they were taking jabs at the Christian stories.
Giuseppe wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:10 amAt contrary, we have clear evidence in Celsus of an accusation against the Christians because their religion was a new cult, ergo a mere superstitio.

Hence Carrier's point stands all (even if he is wrong on Epiphanius): the mention of Ianneus is a real embarrassment for the traditional dating under Pilate.
I agree that it's certainly something that needs explaining. What do you think of Doherty's explanation, that there is evidence that the name of Jesus the Nazarene were much later additions, and that earlier texts suggest other names were there originally? In that case, they wouldn't have cared when they were placing Jesus, it was just an opportunity to take jabs at Christians.
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by GakuseiDon »

mlinssen wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:27 amIf it's a labour of love, then what exactly do you intend to create?
Don't know, don't care sorry.
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Re: Review of Carrier's OHJ, Part 6 of 12: Section 6.1 Talmud Jesus 70 BCE

Post by Giuseppe »

GakuseiDon wrote: Fri Mar 24, 2023 5:47 amWhat do you think of Doherty's explanation, that there is evidence that the name of Jesus the Nazarene were much later additions, and that earlier texts suggest other names were there originally?
I think that it talks a lot about how much an undated Jesus was known by many people. In the same Gospels, if the scholars who say that the Gospel is a "string of pearls connected between them" are correct, we have only the Passion story really dated. The other episodes in Mark are all undated.
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