How do we know X existed?

[ABuddhist]

FWIW Moses Finley (already mentioned in this thread) seems to have accepted broadly traditional dates for the NT writings.

Do we have evidence that he had done any research about the matter? Because if he was just accepting the consensus without doing any research at all, then his opinion would be valuable in law courts but could not be accepted as evidence within historians' writings that the consensus is correct.

He was commenting on the attempt by Sherwin-White in Roman society and Roman law in the New Testamentto argue for the historical accuracy of the NT. He holds that Sherwin-White is correct to regard the NT documents as roughly contemporary with the events they describe but wrong to regard this as any guarantee at all of accuracy.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, but on what ground did he gain the right to be considered an authority about whether Sherwin-White was correct? Such a status, I think, can only be acquired by researching the relevant issues. Based upon what you say, I think that Sherwin-White probably assumed, based upon various types of circular reasoning, that the NT's documents are roughly contemporary with their events.

[andrewcriddle]

FWIW Moses Finley (already mentioned in this thread) seems to have accepted broadly traditional dates for the NT writings.

Do we have evidence that he had done any research about the matter? Because if he was just accepting the consensus without doing any research at all, then his opinion would be valuable in law courts but could not be accepted as evidence within historians' writings that the consensus is correct.

He was commenting on the attempt by Sherwin-White in Roman society and Roman law in the New Testamentto argue for the historical accuracy of the NT. He holds that Sherwin-White is correct to regard the NT documents as roughly contemporary with the events they describe but wrong to regard this as any guarantee at all of accuracy.

Andrew Criddle

Yes, but on what ground did he gain the right to be considered an authority about whether Sherwin-White was correct? Such a status, I think, can only be acquired by researching the relevant issues. Based upon what you say, I think that Sherwin-White probably assumed, based upon various types of circular reasoning, that the NT's documents are roughly contemporary with their events.

No; Sherwin-White argued in detail that the NT writings get things right about Ist century practices on citizenship, legal procedure etc which were different in the 2nd century. Hence he claimed that they were reasonably historically reliable. Moses Finley mostly accepted Sherwin-White's evidence so far as it went but held that it was only evidence that the NT documents were reasonably contemporary with the events they described which was very different from being historically accurate.

Andrew Criddle

[mlinssen]

No; Sherwin-White argued in detail that the NT writings get things right about Ist century practices on citizenship, legal procedure etc which were different in the 2nd century. Hence he claimed that they were reasonably historically reliable. Moses Finley mostly accepted Sherwin-White's evidence so far as it went but held that it was only evidence that the NT documents were reasonably contemporary with the events they described which was very different from being historically accurate.

Andrew Criddle

This is given in virtually identical terms in Matthew and Mark φραγελλώσας, παρέδωκεν, ἵνα σταυρωθῇ Pilate had Christ scourged and handed him over to be crucified'. Luke is rather less precise at this point: Pilate gave sentence that what they asked should be done . . . and delivered Jesus up to their will.'

https://acjonquiere.com/_media/adrian-n ... tament.pdf

It's THE SARUM LECTURES 1960-1961

Odd how it eludes this grand Sherwin-White that the verb here is a Roman loanword whereas all other occurrences are native Greek.
I've just scanned his book here but it's a lot of exegesis, mostly about Acts and Paul, and only focused on Roman Law - and very far from kauai persuasive.
It's always the same with these people: they see what they want to see in one or two accounts and then ignore or mitigate what the others say.
And if anything, any of this would only prove that the writers or editors of the gospels and letters were familiar with Roman law...

[neilgodfrey]

Yes, but on what ground did he gain the right to be considered an authority about whether Sherwin-White was correct? Such a status, I think, can only be acquired by researching the relevant issues. Based upon what you say, I think that Sherwin-White probably assumed, based upon various types of circular reasoning, that the NT's documents are roughly contemporary with their events.

No; Sherwin-White argued in detail that the NT writings get things right about Ist century practices on citizenship, legal procedure etc which were different in the 2nd century. Hence he claimed that they were reasonably historically reliable. Moses Finley mostly accepted Sherwin-White's evidence so far as it went but held that it was only evidence that the NT documents were reasonably contemporary with the events they described which was very different from being historically accurate.

Andrew Criddle

I wrote about Finley's criticism of Sherwin-White's claims about NT sources at An Ancient Historian on Historical Jesus Studies, — and on Ancient Sources Generally

Better still if one wishes to invest more time into the question, Finley's book is online at https://archive.org/details/aspectsofan ... 2/mode/2up -- the link will take you to the relevant page (182).

And to see exactly what Finley was addressing Sherwin-White's book is also available at the same site: https://archive.org/details/romansociet ... 2/mode/2up --- The link should take you to the first of the last two chapters that zero in on questions of the historicity of NT writings.

For others who do not have the time to invest, here is exactly what Finley wrote:

Even if one could accept the view recently re-stated with much vigour by A. N. Sherwin-White in Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, that the Acts and Gospels are qualitatively no different as historical sources from Herodotus or Tacitus, one does not get very far. Mr Sherwin-White has been able to demonstrate that the New Testament is very accurate in its details about life at the time, whether about geography and travel or the rules of citizenship and court procedures. Why should it not be? It is made up of contemporary documents, regardless of the accuracy of the narrative, and so reflects society as it was. That still does not tell us anything about the narrative details, and they are what matters. For that Mr Sherwin-White must, in the end, select and reject, explain and explain away, just as every other scholar has done for as long as anyone has felt the urge (and the possibility) of a historical reconstruction of the Passion. (Aspects, pp. 182f)

Finley is clearly not saying the NT writings were surely contemporary with Jesus but is speaking generally about writings that portray life in the first century. The grounds Finley appears to give for his expressed view are not, "I have studied these documents as much as Sherwin-White has", but the casual "Why should it not be?" He is taking the side of Sherwin-White in order to demonstrate that not even Sherwin-White's argument proves what he claims it does.

Interestingly, Sherwin-White cites Cicero's complaints about mistreatment of Roman citizens by judicial authorities in the provinces -- a point that immediately suggests the possibility that the author of Acts who knew Cicero's letters could well have selectively emulated: was the source for Paul's protest over his treatment though a Roman citizen influenced by the author's knowledge of the same type of complaint expressed by Cicero?

I am not saying it was, but Sherwin-White does open up the possibility. The possibility is added to a pool of other possibilities, all swimming around freely without any controls from independent/external evidence.

I think many of us are aware of anomalies in both the gospels and Acts and even in the letters that have been addressed in the literature (even before and) since Sherwin-White and Finley.

[ABuddhist]

Yes, but on what ground did he gain the right to be considered an authority about whether Sherwin-White was correct? Such a status, I think, can only be acquired by researching the relevant issues. Based upon what you say, I think that Sherwin-White probably assumed, based upon various types of circular reasoning, that the NT's documents are roughly contemporary with their events.

No; Sherwin-White argued in detail that the NT writings get things right about Ist century practices on citizenship, legal procedure etc which were different in the 2nd century. Hence he claimed that they were reasonably historically reliable. Moses Finley mostly accepted Sherwin-White's evidence so far as it went but held that it was only evidence that the NT documents were reasonably contemporary with the events they described which was very different from being historically accurate.

Andrew Criddle

I wrote about Finley's criticism of Sherwin-White's claims about NT sources at An Ancient Historian on Historical Jesus Studies, — and on Ancient Sources Generally

Better still if one wishes to invest more time into the question, Finley's book is online at https://archive.org/details/aspectsofan ... 2/mode/2up -- the link will take you to the relevant page (182).

And to see exactly what Finley was addressing Sherwin-White's book is also available at the same site: https://archive.org/details/romansociet ... 2/mode/2up --- The link should take you to the first of the last two chapters that zero in on questions of the historicity of NT writings.

For others who do not have the time to invest, here is exactly what Finley wrote:

Even if one could accept the view recently re-stated with much vigour by A. N. Sherwin-White in Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament, that the Acts and Gospels are qualitatively no different as historical sources from Herodotus or Tacitus, one does not get very far. Mr Sherwin-White has been able to demonstrate that the New Testament is very accurate in its details about life at the time, whether about geography and travel or the rules of citizenship and court procedures. Why should it not be? It is made up of contemporary documents, regardless of the accuracy of the narrative, and so reflects society as it was. That still does not tell us anything about the narrative details, and they are what matters. For that Mr Sherwin-White must, in the end, select and reject, explain and explain away, just as every other scholar has done for as long as anyone has felt the urge (and the possibility) of a historical reconstruction of the Passion. (Aspects, pp. 182f)

Finley is clearly not saying the NT writings were surely contemporary with Jesus but is speaking generally about writings that portray life in the first century. The grounds Finley appears to give for his expressed view are not, "I have studied these documents as much as Sherwin-White has", but the casual "Why should it not be?" He is taking the side of Sherwin-White in order to demonstrate that not even Sherwin-White's argument proves what he claims it does.

Interestingly, Sherwin-White cites Cicero's complaints about mistreatment of Roman citizens by judicial authorities in the provinces -- a point that immediately suggests the possibility that the author of Acts who knew Cicero's letters could well have selectively emulated: was the source for Paul's protest over his treatment though a Roman citizen influenced by the author's knowledge of the same type of complaint expressed by Cicero?

I am not saying it was, but Sherwin-White does open up the possibility. The possibility is added to a pool of other possibilities, all swimming around freely without any controls from independent/external evidence.

I think many of us are aware of anomalies in both the gospels and Acts and even in the letters that have been addressed in the literature (even before and) since Sherwin-White and Finley.

Furthermore, such anomalies, if accepted as true, may suggest that the documents were not contemporary with their described events.

[rgprice]

I still think much in missed in all of this. Instead of talking how its impossible to prove a negative (which is not true anyway) or looking at various aspects of plausibility, most focus should be on understanding how a claim originated in teh first place.

If we are talking about bigfoot and a specific claim about bigfoot existing in the woods of California, then of course we have to look at the source of the claims and the source of the belief that there was a "bigfoot" creature walking around in the woods. So when you look at stuff like the Patterson-Gimlin film (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patterson ... imlin_film) and conclude that its a faked film with a guy walking around in the suit, that's evidence that big foot doesn't exist. From analysis of that film we can conclude, at the very least, that THAT "version" of big foot never existed, rather belief that THAT concept of big foot was real and existed resulted from people viewing a hoax movie and believing that it was real.

We don't need to be able to go back in time to that location and deforest the area to prove that such a creature didn't exist, all we need to do is prove that the film is a forgery.

Its the exact same with Jesus or any other figure. The Gospels are essentially an ancient version of the Patterson-Gimlin film. When we can demonstrate that the Gospels aren't an account of the life of a person, rather they are literary constructs, then we have essentially proved that Jesus didn't exist, period.

What some people now try to do as the Gospels are increasingly picked apart, is say stuff like, "But, how do we know that this entirely fictional story in which we it can be shown everything was made up, wasn't inspired by the life of a real person."

But this is EXACTLY THE SAME THING as acknowledging that the Patterson-Gimlin film (or any number of other such films) is a hoax, but then saying, "But what if those guys were inspired to make that film because they saw a real big foot and were just reenacting it?!"

At that point its just absurd.

Realistically, right now most advocates of the historical Jesus still hold out the claim that the Gospels are essentially reliable works that are based on the life of a person. There are a few, like MacDonald, who accept that the Gospels are not works based on the life of a person, but who still, inexplicably, think that somehow they were inspired by the life of a real person. To me, that's the most absurd position.

I can understand people who think the Patterson-Gimlin film is real believing in big foot. What I can't understand are people who acknowledge that its a fake, and then still claim that there probably really was a big foot creature living in the area that they took the film. That's the really absurd view, and it seems that there are significant number of people today who take that type of position regarding Jesus.

[Giuseppe]

Is even allegorism necessary?

A sufficient proof to prove that Jesus never existed is to show:

• 1) that even in the earliest gospel Jesus has an entirely celestial origin and not a man;

• 2) that the Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are theologically motivated against anti-demiurgists: if Jesus is also a man, then there is no doubt that the creator is the supreme god;

• 3) that all the not-Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are based on Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man.

[Kunigunde Kreuzerin]

A sufficient proof to prove that Jesus never existed is to show:

• 1) that even in the earliest gospel Jesus has an entirely celestial origin and not a man;

• 2) that the Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are theologically motivated against anti-demiurgists: if Jesus is also a man, then there is no doubt that the creator is the supreme god;

• 3) that all the not-Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are based on Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man.

imho, there are a lot of people, like myself, who are open to the idea that Jesus never existed, but not to this proof

[Giuseppe]

A sufficient proof to prove that Jesus never existed is to show:

• 1) that even in the earliest gospel Jesus has an entirely celestial origin and not a man;

• 2) that the Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are theologically motivated against anti-demiurgists: if Jesus is also a man, then there is no doubt that the creator is the supreme god;

• 3) that all the not-Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are based on Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man.

imho, there are a lot of people, like myself, who are open to the idea that Jesus never existed, but not to this proof

while not excluding a priori the force of other proofs, I find that this described by me is the more intuitive.

(Afterall, I remember that Neil wrote somewhere that if we are discussing yet about the historicity of Jesus is precisely because we (would) have Mark as first gospel and not the Fourth Gospel, where the principal hero is easily judged as: never existed).

[rgprice]

A sufficient proof to prove that Jesus never existed is to show:

• 1) that even in the earliest gospel Jesus has an entirely celestial origin and not a man;

• 2) that the Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are theologically motivated against anti-demiurgists: if Jesus is also a man, then there is no doubt that the creator is the supreme god;

• 3) that all the not-Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man are based on Christian sources talking about Jesus as a man.

imho, there are a lot of people, like myself, who are open to the idea that Jesus never existed, but not to this proof

Yes, but...

Everyone who thinks that Jesus was a real person does so because they assume or believe that the Gospels are accounts of his life and death, no matter how exaggerated. That's fine. However, there are some, who even after accepting that the Gospels aren't based on the life of Jesus, accepting one theory or another of how they are entirely made up, still say, "But that still doesn't prove that he didn't exist."

This is 100% exactly the same as someone putting out a video of what appears to be a monster lurking in the woods, many people believing that it is real and thinking that the monster exists, then having experts debunk the video and show that it is fake, and then people saying, "Yeah, I can see that the video was fakes, BUT I still think the monster exists!"

That makes no sense. The video is the only reason that anyone ever thought that particular monster was real. To still think that that particular monster is real, even once you acknowledge that the video is fake, is crazy. But that's exactly what many "scholars" and others now claim when it comes to Jesus. If you get to the point that you acknowledge that the Gospel accounts (the ONLY accounts of Jesus that ever existed) are made up, then to continue to think that "Jesus existed" makes no sense at all. I can understand thinking he existed if you think that the Gospels are at least marginally historical accounts, but if you accept that they are not, then there is no thread to hold on to anymore.

The fact is that the only reason anyone ever thought that Jesus was a real person was because of the Gospels. There is no other reason at all.

If you prove that the video of the monster is a fake, then there is no reason to believe that the monster was real, because the only evidence for it was the video.