Richard Carrier's decisive point on Justin's Trypho

[Giuseppe]

Also, Giuseppe, Bermejo-Rubio was originally writing in Spanish... not Italian. The original Spanish has "puede" which basically just means "possible" or "may" or "could have".

since I have communication via mail with prof Bermejo-Rubio in past, I can confirm you that he talks Italian as and better than Italians. I think that he has translated directly his book hence the choice of 'can', instead of 'may', is all his.

[dbz]

[In] the Dialogue though, it's all about whether the Scriptures prophecised the Christian's Christ rather than the Jewish one, or whether Christians had in fact invented a Christ for themselves.

• Carrier's position is that someone trained in the rhetoric of the period would not bother to try and disprove the existence of a nobody failure from 100 years or more past. But obliviously his existence is even doubted by the skeptics that Trypho represents.

The best we can expect is that some might suspect he didn’t [exist]. And that is what Justin reveals to be the case. In Dialogue with Trypho 8.4 Justin depicts his imagined Jewish opponent Trypho saying (emphasis mine), “after receiving groundless hearsay,” ματαίαν ἀκοὴν, “you invent a Christ for yourselves,” ἀναπλάσσετε, “and because of him you’re heading to a pointless destruction.” To which Justin responds, “we have not believed empty fables,” and the word here is indeed myths (κενοῖς μύθοις), “or stories without any proof,” ἀναποδείκτοις λόγοις, “but stories filled with the Spirit of God, and bursting with power, and flourishing with grace!” (Dialogue 9.1).

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--Carrier (26 March 2023). "On the Historicity of Jesus and the Rhetoric of Justin's Dialogue with Trypho". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[maryhelena]

I think this whole debate over whether Jesus was historical or a myth, ie a literary creation, is not what the Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho is about at all. Such a debate would have been pointless as there was no way at that time, as now, to establish historicity for the gospel Jesus figure. As far as I can discern the whole debate is over crucifixion. In fact the word 'crucified' occurs 62 times in the dialogue.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... rypho.html

Consequently, whether one views this dialogue as supporting a historical Jesus or a literary Jesus figure - the point of the dialogue remains relevant to both positions - crucifixion. And that, I would suggest, goes right to the heart of the NT story - how to turn crucifixion from being something accursed into something of salvation value. The Jesus historicists are on a losing wicket here - there is no way to turn a human sacrifice, a human crucifixion, into a humanitarian value. There is, however, opportunity for the ahistoricists to take up the challenge.

Then Trypho remarked, "Be assured that all our nation waits for Christ; and we admit that all the Scriptures which you have quoted refer to Him. Moreover, I do also admit that the name of Jesus, by which the the son of Nave (Nun) was called, has inclined me very strongly to adopt this view. But whether Christ should be so shamefully crucified, this we are in doubt about. For whosoever is crucified is said in the law to be accursed, so that I am exceedingly incredulous on this point. It is quite clear, indeed, that the Scriptures announce that Christ had to suffer; but we wish to learn if you can prove it to us whether it was by the suffering cursed in the law."

[Paul the Uncertain]

For a long time, I was mystified why historicists bother with the argument-substitute "doubt about Jesus being a real man who actually lived is of modern vintage." Apart from being a gold-plated example of the genetic fallacy, what is wrong with modern ideas so very especially?

Apart from its vacuity, how would you know that its foundational fact claim was true? Estimates vary, but do we have even 10% of what was written "for publication" in ancient times still extant? And why the sudden contempt for "oral tradition" which otherwise is the lynchpin of any prayer of historical status for the gospels? No counterapologist, having complained that the gospels were written by scoundrels about a con man who ended up crucified, ever muttered "assuming that the guy ever lived."? And you know that how?

My first hint that the question might be a little interesting was to encounter things like the thread's Trypho example. Remarks that could refer to a fictional or mythological Jesus, but that didn't necessarily deny that he was a real man who actually lived. For me, the eye opener was Julian's swipe at the Alexandrian Christians. Contrasting Jesus with the sun, Julian wrote that neither the Alexandrians nor their fathers had ever seen Jesus.

Now, that could mean Christianity was a new religion. Or it could mean that the evidence in the 4th Century for Jesus as a real man was doubtful. Or it could mean that Julian had come to doubt the existence of Jesus. Or it could mean all of those things at once. There is no way to tell, and therefore no way to claim that doubt about a real Jesus was unknown in the 4th Century.

Of course, there are other examples, like Trypho, like Paul's phrase about the teachers of a different Jesus than the one whom he taught ... could mean one thing, could mean something else. Would the claim that at least one of the examples reflects doubt require an unbroken string of "strained" reading(s)? I think not. The heuristic "false in one thing, maybe false in all" was known in ancient times. We encounter claims that the gospels are unreliable about miracles. Maybe the author thinks they are unreliable about personnel, too - regardless of whether the latter is overtly expressed.

Further, what survives from the ancient counterapologists is largely polished rhetoric (like Julian's, Celsus's, etc.). Unless the counteraplogist could prove the fact claim, then to assert that Jesus didn't exist is futile; softer expressions of personal doubt would be the fallacious argument from ignorance. In other words, we the living would be surprised to find educated people offering non-arguments (particularly after their work had been "curated" for us by their opponents).

More affirmatively, Celsus's Jewish character (who is as fictive as Trypho probably is) brags about being able to refute Christian claims based on their own writings and nothing else. Then and now, that is effective rhetoric: to accept all the opponent's fact claims and show that their interpretation of those facts is deficient.

The killer for me, though, was the ancient attestation of a Simonian claim that Simon Magus enacted the deeds falsely attributed to Jesus as magical performances, including the crucifixion. That implies that Simonians asserted in ancient times that the typical definition of "historical Jesus" doesn't refer to any real man who actually lived. If P implies Q, and P was asserted, then Q was also asserted.

I conclude that it is more likely than not that the non-existence of Jesus as a historical person was held and taught by some in ancient times, and that it is as secure as any other heretical teaching that doubt about his existence was known in ancient times.

Not that any of that, either way, bears on the question of whether or not Jesus was a real man who actually lived. What did or didn't happen in intellectual history interests me for its own sake. The claim that only modern people doubt that Jesus was a real man who actually lived resides tenuously at the margins of serious possibility, and nowhere near the status of established fact.

[ABuddhist]

The killer for me, though, was the ancient attestation of a Simonian claim that Simon Magus enacted the deeds falsely attributed to Jesus as magical performances, including the crucifixion. That implies that Simonians asserted in ancient times that the typical definition of "historical Jesus" doesn't refer to any real man who actually lived. If P implies Q, and P was asserted, then Q was also asserted.

From what I understand, though, the Simonians were claiming that Simon/Jesus had appeared to be crucified in an incident upon the Earth but he had at some level not been crucified. This would have been an illusion which other people would have seen as a real event.

[dbz]

The claim that only modern people doubt that Jesus was a real man who actually lived resides tenuously at the margins of serious possibility, and nowhere near the status of established fact.

• Cf. "Russell's Teapot". RationalWiki.

At the end of the day it can be indeterminate: either H1==teapot or H2==no_teapot.

Or maybe Schrödinger's cat is a better analogy that will satisfy everybody.

[Paul the Uncertain]

The killer for me, though, was the ancient attestation of a Simonian claim that Simon Magus enacted the deeds falsely attributed to Jesus as magical performances, including the crucifixion. That implies that Simonians asserted in ancient times that the typical definition of "historical Jesus" doesn't refer to any real man who actually lived. If P implies Q, and P was asserted, then Q was also asserted.

From what I understand, though, the Simonians were claiming that Simon/Jesus had appeared to be crucified in an incident upon the Earth but he had at some level not been crucified. This would have been an illusion which other people would have seen as a real event.

Yes, but the the Simonian claim is that neither the man crucified nor the man casting the glamour was Jesus. As such, it can be distinguished from Basilides's claim that Jesus at least cast the glamour (and so in Basilides's model there had to be a historical Jesus of some sort, even if the most usual definition of HJ requires him to have been crucified - close enough for guild work, I guess). The Simonian claim also had Simon doing other wonders in Jewish territory, so it is not material to their claim that there had to be a historical wonder-working Jewish Jesus in order for Simon's glamour to be mistaken for that Jesus.

The Simonian version of history is that "Jesus of Galilee" was a role played by the historical man Simon. (Whether Simon was really historical is a separate question. The claim before the house concerns what was taught by ancient counterapologists, not the truth of their teachings.)

[andrewcriddle]

The killer for me, though, was the ancient attestation of a Simonian claim that Simon Magus enacted the deeds falsely attributed to Jesus as magical performances, including the crucifixion. That implies that Simonians asserted in ancient times that the typical definition of "historical Jesus" doesn't refer to any real man who actually lived. If P implies Q, and P was asserted, then Q was also asserted.

From what I understand, though, the Simonians were claiming that Simon/Jesus had appeared to be crucified in an incident upon the Earth but he had at some level not been crucified. This would have been an illusion which other people would have seen as a real event.

Yes, but the the Simonian claim is that neither the man crucified nor the man casting the glamour was Jesus. As such, it can be distinguished from Basilides's claim that Jesus at least cast the glamour (and so in Basilides's model there had to be a historical Jesus of some sort, even if the most usual definition of HJ requires him to have been crucified - close enough for guild work, I guess). The Simonian claim also had Simon doing other wonders in Jewish territory, so it is not material to their claim that there had to be a historical wonder-working Jewish Jesus in order for Simon's glamour to be mistaken for that Jesus.

The Simonian version of history is that "Jesus of Galilee" was a role played by the historical man Simon. (Whether Simon was really historical is a separate question. The claim before the house concerns what was taught by ancient counterapologists, not the truth of their teachings.)

The Simonian claim from Irenaeus is

and he [Simon] taught that it was himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself, in a word, as being the loftiest of all powers, that is, the Being who is the Father over all, and he allowed himself to be called by whatsoever title men were pleased to address him.

i.e. the historical Simon was an avatar of a divine being, the historical Jesus being another avatar. This is a weird claim but I doubt whether it really denies the existence of a historical Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

EDITED TO ADD

I should have included the following passage from Irenaeus

For since the angels ruled the world ill because each one of them coveted the principal power for himself, he [Simon] had come to amend matters, and had descended, transfigured and assimilated to powers and principalities and angels, so that he might appear among men to be a man, while yet he was not a man; and that thus he was thought to have suffered in Judæa, when he had not suffered

[Secret Alias]

It should be noted that (from memory of the Greek) the reference is not to "the crucified man" (specifically emphasizing man) but "the crucified (one)." Worth mentioning.

[Paul the Uncertain]

The Simonian claim from Irenaeus is

and he [Simon] taught that it was himself who appeared among the Jews as the Son, but descended in Samaria as the Father while he came to other nations in the character of the Holy Spirit. He represented himself, in a word, as being the loftiest of all powers, that is, the Being who is the Father over all, and he allowed himself to be called by whatsoever title men were pleased to address him.

i.e. the historical Simon was an avatar of a divine being, the historical Jesus being another avatar. This is a weird claim but I doubt whether it really denies the existence of a historical Jesus.

Well, doubt is what I propose to be warranted as to the claim that no ancient taught that the historical Jesus didn't exist. I didn't quite see where Irenaeus claimed that Simon taught that Jesus was (1) historical and (2) another avatar of a divine being.

Some further thoughts on the matter are found here:

https://uncertaintist.wordpress.com/201 ... dnt-exist/

Andrew Criddle

EDITED TO ADD

I should have included the following passage from Irenaeus

For since the angels ruled the world ill because each one of them coveted the principal power for himself, he [Simon] had come to amend matters, and had descended, transfigured and assimilated to powers and principalities and angels, so that he might appear among men to be a man, while yet he was not a man; and that thus he was thought to have suffered in Judæa, when he had not suffered

Sorry, still don't see where Irenaeus claimed that Simon taught that Jesus was (1) historical and (2) another avatar of a divine being.