Manuscript evidence

[stephan happy huller]

Still though it is one thing to argue that the historical information about Jesus is unreliable and another thing to make the case that Jesus never existed. The real problem IMO is the insular nature of the Jewish community. If we compare the historical evidence for Apollonius of Tyana for example the only reason there appears to be more evidence for Apollonius is that he lived within the framework of a large pluralistic pagan culture. How information would we expect to derive from the same types of sources (i.e. the first century equivalents to Philostratus etc) about a first century Jew living in Judea? I think the problem is more complicated and more nuanced than people are willing to admit.

[dewitness]

Still though it is one thing to argue that the historical information about Jesus is unreliable and another thing to make the case that Jesus never existed...

It can be easily argued that Romulus of Rome never existed so there is no real difficulty in arguing that Jesus of the NT never existed.

It must be noted that the information about Romulus of Rome is not reliable just like Jesus of Nazareth.

In fact, it is expected that stories about Myth characters to be historically unreliable.

[MrMacSon]

Still though it is one thing to argue that the historical information about Jesus is unreliable and another thing to make the case that Jesus never existed. The real problem IMO is the insular nature of the Jewish community. If we compare the historical evidence for Apollonius of Tyana for example the only reason there appears to be more evidence for Apollonius is that he lived within the framework of a large pluralistic pagan culture. How information would we expect to derive from the same types of sources (i.e. the first century equivalents to Philostratus etc) about a first century Jew living in Judea? I think the problem is more complicated and more nuanced than people are willing to admit.

But wasn't the Jewish community becoming less insular through the 1st Century AD/CE into the 2nd C?

And this lessening of insularity started earlier in the 2nd C BC/BCE?

There were quite a few Romans and Greeks writing about the 1st (& 2nd) C/s?

[Roger Pearse]

Yes, what actual, physical, first century proof is there of Jesus? This could include papyri, wall scribblings, pot shards, clay tablets, stelae, tapestry, stone monuments...all dated to at least 35-40 AD. Sorry, but copies and claims or copies or one's "feelings" cannot be used as proof....in science, or a court of law.

Ancient history is not done like this, I am afraid.

Consider the history of events in Roman Britain after the death of Theodosius I in 396 AD. Our best source is Zosimus, living in Constantinople in the early 6th century, well over a century later, writing in Greek, and in a world in which the western empire had ceased to exist in any sense 50 years earlier, never mind remote little Britain. We have very little else to go on.

Or we could talk about whether the establishment of the date of Christmas, presumably in the early 4th c., is connected to the cult of Sol Invictus. If we do, as a web search will reveal, sooner or later someone discusses the testimony of the scholiast on Dionysius bar Salibi; a 13th century Syriac writer who probably never visited any part of what had been the Roman world 9 centuries earlier.

Or we might discuss the lives of the sages and philosophers of ancient Greece; the will of Aristotle, from the 4th c. BC, is preserved only in Diogenes Laertius, writing in the 4th c. AD.

Now we may certainly decide, if we like, that we aren't satisfied with the evidence in any of these three cases. We would rather not know, than rely on our only sources of information. We may, if we choose, use this kind of argument to show that "history is mostly bunk". This is obscurantism, pretending not to know what we do know, making ourselves ignorant of what is in fact known. It's a choice; to be educated, or ignorant. I hope we would all choose the former.

In ancient history we work from what is transmitted to us. It is little enough. Only polemicists find excuses to ignore any of it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

[avi]

spin offered a reference to Don Barker's research. Here's a link to this lovely article, cited by spin above.
http://people.uncw.edu/zervosg/Papyrolo ... papyri.pdf

The provenance of P52 is unknown. This scrap of papyrus was purchased, in the open air market, in Egypt, in 1920. There were many scraps of papyrus floating around, in Egypt, in the first two decades of the 20th century, because of the wondrous discovery by Grenfell, (the same guy who purchased P52 in Egypt,) and Hunt, in the late 19th century.

Someone realized that a good price could be obtained from the right person, by copying some small text from one of the gospels, and he/she selected John. Thus the real age, of P52 is a hundred years, by my calculation.

Foreskins, Crosses, shrouds, why not papyrus forgery?

[dewitness]

Yes, what actual, physical, first century proof is there of Jesus? This could include papyri, wall scribblings, pot shards, clay tablets, stelae, tapestry, stone monuments...all dated to at least 35-40 AD. Sorry, but copies and claims or copies or one's "feelings" cannot be used as proof....in science, or a court of law.

Ancient history is not done like this, I am afraid.

Consider the history of events in Roman Britain after the death of Theodosius I in 396 AD. Our best source is Zosimus, living in Constantinople in the early 6th century, well over a century later, writing in Greek, and in a world in which the western empire had ceased to exist in any sense 50 years earlier, never mind remote little Britain. We have very little else to go on.

Please, Roger. Have you ever heard of archaeology? Archaeologist DO NOT only read books.

Or we could talk about whether the establishment of the date of Christmas, presumably in the early 4th c., is connected to the cult of Sol Invictus. If we do, as a web search will reveal, sooner or later someone discusses the testimony of the scholiast on Dionysius bar Salibi; a 13th century Syriac writer who probably never visited any part of what had been the Roman world 9 centuries earlier.

Or we might discuss the lives of the sages and philosophers of ancient Greece; the will of Aristotle, from the 4th c. BC, is preserved only in Diogenes Laertius, writing in the 4th c. AD.

We have thousands of artifacts from antiquity and all we have of Jesus is a FAKE CALLED the Shroud of Turin and a massive amount of forgeries called NT manuscripts.

[Blood]

It wouldn't matter if the gospel could be dated to 30 CE.

"Dracula" dates from a mere four years after Count Dracula moved to London. This isn't evidence for Dracula.

Fiction is fiction.

[Blood]

Yes, what actual, physical, first century proof is there of Jesus? This could include papyri, wall scribblings, pot shards, clay tablets, stelae, tapestry, stone monuments...all dated to at least 35-40 AD. Sorry, but copies and claims or copies or one's "feelings" cannot be used as proof....in science, or a court of law.

Ancient history is not done like this, I am afraid.

Consider the history of events in Roman Britain after the death of Theodosius I in 396 AD. Our best source is Zosimus, living in Constantinople in the early 6th century, well over a century later, writing in Greek, and in a world in which the western empire had ceased to exist in any sense 50 years earlier, never mind remote little Britain. We have very little else to go on.

Or we could talk about whether the establishment of the date of Christmas, presumably in the early 4th c., is connected to the cult of Sol Invictus. If we do, as a web search will reveal, sooner or later someone discusses the testimony of the scholiast on Dionysius bar Salibi; a 13th century Syriac writer who probably never visited any part of what had been the Roman world 9 centuries earlier.

Or we might discuss the lives of the sages and philosophers of ancient Greece; the will of Aristotle, from the 4th c. BC, is preserved only in Diogenes Laertius, writing in the 4th c. AD.

Now we may certainly decide, if we like, that we aren't satisfied with the evidence in any of these three cases. We would rather not know, than rely on our only sources of information. We may, if we choose, use this kind of argument to show that "history is mostly bunk". This is obscurantism, pretending not to know what we do know, making ourselves ignorant of what is in fact known. It's a choice; to be educated, or ignorant. I hope we would all choose the former.

In ancient history we work from what is transmitted to us. It is little enough. Only polemicists find excuses to ignore any of it.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Yes, but with Jesus we're dealing with theology, not history. Nobody is claiming Aristotle is God. Therefore, an extraordinary claim (Jesus was/is God and is omnipresent over the universe eternally) requires a higher degree of evidential support for credibility than mere mortals like those you mentioned.

[Blood]

Still though it is one thing to argue that the historical information about Jesus is unreliable and another thing to make the case that Jesus never existed. The real problem IMO is the insular nature of the Jewish community. If we compare the historical evidence for Apollonius of Tyana for example the only reason there appears to be more evidence for Apollonius is that he lived within the framework of a large pluralistic pagan culture. How information would we expect to derive from the same types of sources (i.e. the first century equivalents to Philostratus etc) about a first century Jew living in Judea? I think the problem is more complicated and more nuanced than people are willing to admit.

The real problem is the insular nature of the Christian community. The writers were intellectuals, they could have preserved accurate records but they chose instead to write under fake names, pretend they were people they were not, secretly "canonize" certain texts in closed councils, etc.

[Roger Pearse]

Ancient history is not done like this, I am afraid. ...
Now we may certainly decide, if we like, that we aren't satisfied with the evidence in any of these three cases. We would rather not know, than rely on our only sources of information. We may, if we choose, use this kind of argument to show that "history is mostly bunk". This is obscurantism, pretending not to know what we do know, making ourselves ignorant of what is in fact known. It's a choice; to be educated, or ignorant. I hope we would all choose the former.

In ancient history we work from what is transmitted to us. It is little enough. Only polemicists find excuses to ignore any of it.

Yes, but with Jesus we're dealing with theology, not history. Nobody is claiming Aristotle is God. Therefore, an extraordinary claim (Jesus was/is God and is omnipresent over the universe eternally) requires a higher degree of evidential support for credibility than mere mortals like those you mentioned.

We have no concern with whether there is a theological claim in all this. Our concern is purely with history here. History concerns all sorts of things, most of which have some kind of political or theological angle or other, if we choose to see one. But to do history we have to escape from all the shouting. The reason that I chose Aristotle's will, as an example, is that nobody is invested in whether it exists or not. So we can work out some principles without lots of politics. Getting some sound and unbiased principles, which we can apply regardless of whether people have axes to grind, is the requirement, surely?

As for this "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" business ... how, **in practice**, is it different from "claims that I do not want to believe require extraordinary evidence"? Is it ever used for any other purpose? (It is not used in any scholarship or science that I am familiar with, since it starts, not with data, but with a presupposition that some data should not be heard).

When we investigate something in an ancient culture, our main problem is the prejudices we bring to it, as people living 2,000 years later in a different culture etc. Our main effort is to descope these. So that "extraordinary claims" business is the reverse of what we want to do.

Pardon me if that is unclear - long journey yesterday.

Data first; reasons/excuses to ignore it last (if at all). I've generally found that a good principle.

All the best,

Roger Pearse