Weighing up the evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’

[outhouse]

There is nothing to say the rural Galileans were starving most of the time



Cordially, Bernard

That's not true is it?

You know all the passages that speak of hunger?

Eating poorly does not does not increase the mortality rate below 5 years of age, like disease, in this case malaria. And starvation.

These people had it tough.



Zealots did not take the temple down on theological reasons alone, their lives were miserable under oppression. Enough so suicide was not a bad option, knowing death was certain going against the temple.


Also it is not just lack of food here that makes it not as plausible. Jesus would have learned from Johns mistakes of what happens when one gathers a large crowd. Heads seem to become loose and then they seem to fall off much easier. He had a plan, and being killed by John was probably not one of them. He was a traveling teacher taking his message to strangers. The largest most popular gospel only has him with 4 apostles, as that makes sense surviving off dinner scraps [flat bread dipped in olive oil or vinegar, and lentil's if they were lucky]

[steve43]

Josephus reports that the Jewish east was very fruitful and the population mushroomed in the early first century A.D. There were towns and villages all over the place.

The area was full of natural springs, and was always very fertile. Remains of Neanderthals have been found in Northern Israel.

They had a yearly wet season as well- evidence suggests that there was a sudden climate change around 500 A.D. or so and so we have the much dryer area that we know call Israel.


FWIW

[outhouse]

Josephus reports that the Jewish east was very fruitful and the population mushroomed in the early first century A.D. There were towns and villages all over the place.

The area was full of natural springs, and was always very fertile. Remains of Neanderthals have been found in Northern Israel.

They had a yearly wet season as well- evidence suggests that there was a sudden climate change around 500 A.D. or so and so we have the much dryer area that we know call Israel.


FWIW

Which is all fine and dandy. But population increase was do to the rebuilding of Sepphoris and Tiberius with an increase of 8000-12000 people in Sepphoris alone, of which the burden was placed on peasants [Johnathon Reed]

But it gives us no example of how exploited these Aramaic Jews were by the building of Sepphoris [Johnathon Reed]

It also does not take into account these were oppressed people, NOT agrarian people who had it rough without being oppressed.

It also does not take into account the lowest 10% of the population that lived below the subsistence level, like Fishermen and Galilean Tektons. [Stephen Patterson]

It also ignores that even in the wealthy places children's skull were found with low iron and protein levels. Leg bones plagued with Harris lines.



I see plenty of different models out there that fan be argued on both sides, but the archeology is where it BS stops. They show a tough life for all and mal nutrition rampant .

[Leucius Charinus]

I see plenty of different models out there that fan be argued on both sides, but the archeology is where it BS stops.

Anthropology???? There is no archaeology.

Back to the OP:

http://otagosh.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/ ... ernia.html

• The latest HJ/Mythicist Stoush
  
  Nothing quite stirs the waters among New Testament scholars as the suggestion that Jesus may not have existed. Raphael Lataster's piece in the Washington Post has led one of his former professors to come out swinging. You can read John Dickson's fulminations on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting) site.
  
  G.S. Neil, racing to Lataster's defence, has crafted a response to the Dickson piece. I'll append it in full below. Do read both the Lataster and Dickson articles first though, or it won't make much sense.
  
  What struck me about Dickson's rant is that in some key areas he doesn't actually seem to know all that much about the state of New Testament studies

Also, thanks Mac for the following references from another thread ....

Here's some interesting reflections of other aspects of other current discourse also described, interestingly, as religious 'violence', and aspects that I think reflect cult of personality -

• 1. http://gsneil.com/2015/01/03/speaking-of-myth/
  

  • I have a distaste for violence. Here, I must remind the good reader that violence is not strictly a physical phenomenon. Violence to a person’s ideas and reputation are harmful, just as other forms of violence are harmful to body and property. In the world of scholarship, violence is done by uncivil discourse and ad hominem attacks, to name just a couple of ways. And this is not only a modern development. It goes back a long way (just spend a little time reading the so-called saintly church fathers and you’ll see what I mean). The violence is not in simply challenging another person’s idea — it’s in why and how it’s done.

  2. http://vridar.org/2014/12/30/the-churli ... r-scholar/
  
  3. GS Neil again http://otagosh.blogspot.com.au/2014/12/ ... ernia.html
  

  • It is arguably evident to a third-party reader that Dickson is playing a “scorched student” strategy to distance himself from any criticism about where Lataster might have done his learning. Rather than preserving his credibility as an instructor, his emotional and careless response shines a light on his own exposure to bad marks and frankly, succeeds in making Lataster look better for having come through his influence with a better than average willingness to keep questioning the “settled” scholarship. Fail.

  4. http://vridar.org/2015/01/07/why-believ ... -question/

LC

[MrMacSon]

cheers, LC. I was going to copy it here, too, when I just realized all those blog-posts have developed from the initial article in the OP of this thread.

[neilgodfrey]

Which is all fine and dandy. But population increase was do to the rebuilding of Sepphoris and Tiberius with an increase of 8000-12000 people in Sepphoris alone, of which the burden was placed on peasants [Johnathon Reed]

But it gives us no example of how exploited these Aramaic Jews were by the building of Sepphoris [Johnathon Reed]

Jonathan Reed's argument: http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/exc ... esus.shtml

Versus

David Flensey's argument: http://vridar.org/2013/08/25/the-rich-p ... jesus-day/

[neilgodfrey]

Notice how often the gospels are used as evidence for the poverty of the Galileans in the time of Jesus (at least two references in there to hunger!!)

But when it comes to Sepphoris the absence from the gospels of any reference to this major city is not considered relevant for its significance to the Jesus movement. When Jesus wants to address a big crowd or get his message to "all the cities of Galilee" there is no explanation why he avoided Sepphoris.

But such inconsistencies (and rationalizations to paraphrase the myth) are standard methodology in biblical studies.

On the one hand the extreme hardship of Sepphoris is called up to explain the Jesus movement; but at the same time its complete absence from the record has to be overlooked.

I once critiqued the methods and evidence used by one scholar (representative of a number of others, actually) to argue for the significance of Sepphoris and Tiberias here: http://vridar.org/2010/03/21/why-christ ... leys-book/

[MrMacSon]

Notice how often the gospels are used as evidence for the poverty of the Galileans in the time of Jesus (at least two references in there to hunger!!)

Have you read John Bartram's take on "The Poor" -

How The Poor are portrayed in the following textual tradition, including texts of the New Testament, Church histories, various anti-heresy polemics and in traditional, modern scholarship, reveals the character of the history provided by the combination of Church, academia and State:
The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians - a reference to their material and voluntary poverty.[11][14][15]

https://sites.google.com/site/originsof ... y/the-poor

Bartram goes on

The Jews of Qumran were known by many titles other than The Poor and Essenes; one was Nazirite:

This term was parodied with:
The Nazarenes were a sect of 4th-century Christianity first mentioned by Epiphanius of Salamis, who considered them heretics.[1] The group was later mentioned by Jerome and Augustine of Hippo.[2][3]

[Leucius Charinus]

On the one hand the extreme hardship of Sepphoris is called up to explain the Jesus movement; but at the same time its complete absence from the record has to be overlooked.

Good point.

I once critiqued the methods and evidence used by one scholar (representative of a number of others, actually) to argue for the significance of Sepphoris and Tiberias here: http://vridar.org/2010/03/21/why-christ ... leys-book/

Schwartz says it all ....

• Schwartz on method
  
  And I never tire of reminding anyone willing to listen that this basic method of determining historicity of a narrative was warned about way back in 1904:
  
  
  • only in special cases does there exist a tradition about a given literary production independent of the self-witness of the literary production itself; and that the person who utilizes a literary-historical tradition must always first demonstrate its character as a historical document. General grounds of probability cannot take the place of this demonstration.
  from an academic paper delivered in 1904 by E. Schwartz: cited in a 1991 chapter by Luise Abramowski titled “The ‘Memoirs of the Apostles’ in Justin” pp.331-332 published in “The Gospel and the Gospels” ed. Peter Stuhlmacher.

LC

[neilgodfrey]

How The Poor are portrayed in the following textual tradition, including texts of the New Testament, Church histories, various anti-heresy polemics and in traditional, modern scholarship, reveals the character of the history provided by the combination of Church, academia and State:
The term "the poor" was at first a common designation for all Christians - a reference to their material and voluntary poverty.[11][14][15]

https://sites.google.com/site/originsof ... y/the-poor

The only footnote there that is relevant to the suggestion that Christians were from the first known as "the poor" is [15] -- "the poor" reference in Galatians is thought by some to be a technical term for the saints. I don't think the context supports that, however.

Ebionites were early but we can't assume they represented all Christians at any one time.

I would not be surprised if earliest Christianity did have ideological connections with "the poor", but we can't forget that some of our earliest evidence tells us that there were well-to-do among their ranks, too.