How do we know X existed?

[neilgodfrey]

The point is that we don't have historical evidence for the figures you listed. Or for the Genesis history or the Exodus. But we do have historical evidence for the late 1st century b.c. and the first century c.e. Because we do have historical evidence for people living in these two centuries, it would surely be illogical to deny the gospel writers the opportunity to use whatever it was in these two centuries, personalities, historical events, that they deemed to be relevant to the Jesus story they were creating.

No one is "denying" the gospel writers "the opportunity to use whatever" they want. But it is a mistake to assume that a parallel means that one story is about the other. There are other explanations for parallels and they all need to be set out on the table and tested.

[Irish1975]

"Existence" is the wrong word to use in historical inquiry. For Zoroaster, or Akhanaten, Hammurabi, or Priam, we have such and such literature, reports, or evidence. As with photographical images of the most distant galaxies in the known universe, we know how poor the evidence is for a true knowledge of the object. But the existence and the report are not separated in one's theory of knowledge, nor need they be.

"Exists" is a weasel word. If some popular author, reputed to be an authority, declares with unctuous finality that "Jesus existed," we receive the statement as though the existence of a man could be ascertained and understood separately from the accounts of him, and as though his existence were something distinct from his identity, character, context, and reputation. No one doubts that we have accounts of a man Jesus of Nazareth as of someone who actually lived. But whether the person depicted was an actual man in history, one and the same as the "Christ" reported in Pliny or Tacitus or the Odes of Solomon, or the "Jesus" of gThomas, or the "Jesus Christ" of 2 Thessalonians and Revelation--these are different questions, and impossible to answer. And the fact that 4 distinct and irreconcilable representations of the quasi-historical man are handed down is also marginalized. But these problems are immediately marginalized once the debate is simplified at the outset to the cartoonish binary, "Did Jesus exist, or didn't he?" Which doesn't even touch the problem that in modern cultures, Jesus is a god to whom people pray.

All to say, the question "who is X" and "how is X represented to us" cannot be separated from "did X exist"? I feel like the whole existence debate creates unnecessary confusion about the fundamental questions.

I appreciate the work of Doherty, because what he was really getting it is the question whether a convincing argument can be made that any historical Jesus of Nazareth was the historical cause of the Christian religion. When Carrier tries to transform the discussion into a quasi-scientific analysis of probable existence vs. probable mythicality (sorry to have to invent that word), the whole thing goes sideways.

[maryhelena]

The point is that we don't have historical evidence for the figures you listed. Or for the Genesis history or the Exodus. But we do have historical evidence for the late 1st century b.c. and the first century c.e. Because we do have historical evidence for people living in these two centuries, it would surely be illogical to deny the gospel writers the opportunity to use whatever it was in these two centuries, personalities, historical events, that they deemed to be relevant to the Jesus story they were creating.

No one is "denying" the gospel writers "the opportunity to use whatever" they want. But it is a mistake to assume that a parallel means that one story is about the other. There are other explanations for parallels and they all need to be set out on the table and tested.

Very pleased to note that there is no 'denying' on your part ''the opportunity ' for the gospel writers to use whatever they want to use in creating their JC storyboard. Perhaps 'allusion' is a better approach than looking for direct parallels of A = A.

[mlinssen]

"Existence" is the wrong word to use in historical inquiry. For Zoroaster, or Akhanaten, Hammurabi, or Priam, we have such and such literature, reports, or evidence. As with photographical images of the most distant galaxies in the known universe, we know how poor the evidence is for a true knowledge of the object. But the existence and the report are not separated in one's theory of knowledge, nor need they be.

"Exists" is a weasel word. If some popular author, reputed to be an authority, declares with unctuous finality that "Jesus existed," we receive the statement as though the existence of a man could be ascertained and understood separately from the accounts of him, and as though his existence were something distinct from his identity, character, context, and reputation. No one doubts that we have accounts of a man Jesus of Nazareth as of someone who actually lived. But whether the person depicted was an actual man in history, one and the same as the "Christ" reported in Pliny or Tacitus or the Odes of Solomon, or the "Jesus" of gThomas, or the "Jesus Christ" of 2 Thessalonians and Revelation--these are different questions, and impossible to answer. And the fact that 4 distinct and irreconcilable representations of the quasi-historical man are handed down is also marginalized. But these problems are immediately marginalized once the debate is simplified at the outset to the cartoonish binary, "Did Jesus exist, or didn't he?" Which doesn't even touch the problem that in modern cultures, Jesus is a god to whom people pray.

All to say, the question "who is X" and "how is X represented to us" cannot be separated from "did X exist"? I feel like the whole existence debate creates unnecessary confusion about the fundamental questions.

I appreciate the work of Doherty, because what he was really getting it is the question whether a convincing argument can be made that any historical Jesus of Nazareth was the historical cause of the Christian religion. When Carrier tries to transform the discussion into a quasi-scientific analysis of probable existence vs. probable mythicality (sorry to have to invent that word), the whole thing goes sideways.

Exactly.
I always ask the question "what if Jesus can be really proven to have existed, and turns out to be a 7-foot Chinese who could fart on command?". That's deliberately misleading of course, but it demonstrates what drives the search for that existence

The binary question is cartoonish indeed and completely besides the point. The stories exist, we have them, and we can compare them. Does it matter whether Socrates really existed, whether Harry Potter is real? Their stories are all that counts.
The whole search for a historical Jesus only serves to create an infallible theory, one that can't be proven nor disproven, prolonging the stalemate

[andrewcriddle]

I would be interested in examples from the writings of historians in areas other than related to biblical studies.

You've already put an example in play from outside Bible studies and about which abundant academic ink has been spilled. That is, the inference that Socrates was a real man who actually lived (c. 470-399 BCE), based on the evidence attributed to Aristophanes (c. 446-386, especially The Clouds dated to 423), Plato (c. 426-348) and Xenophon (c. 430-354).

The three witnesses' lives overlap with the subject's ostensible life. From a literary perspective, it is plausible that the irreverent and fictive portrayal of Socrates in The Clouds may have influenced Plato and Xenophon to emphasize the admirable features of their teacher within more factual-seeming presentations. (Although those serial short stories Plato wrote featuring the wit and wisdom of a character named Socrates are as "literary" as Sherlock Holmes stories.)

You are a better judge than I as to the senses in which these three witnesses might be described as "independent" in the jargon of academic historians. On the other hand, we can agree that one sense of independent suggested by another poster is unworkable.

All of that is possible. Indeed, I even recall as an undergraduate a tutor raising the possibility that Socrates was 'nothing more than' a literary figure, a creation of the philosophers and a byword for the sophists in general in popular parlance. That's possible, but happily it doesn't make any difference as far as historical development of the sophist movement and "Socratic" philosophy and the various offshoots are concerned.

Contemporary accounts are necessary for historical reliability, I think, but they are not the guarantees of historical reliability. They still need to be tested and are presumably are always open to challenge -- like any other (contemporary) source.

The reason I choose the Socrates as an example of very probably historicity is because he is the closest I know to the figure of Jesus.

Pythagoras is probably a better parallel.

With Socrates there is IMO very little doubt that a man called Socrates was executed by the Athenians c 400 BCE. There is IMO real doubt whether he resembled at all the figure depicted in the surviving sources but that is another issue.

Whether by your criteria we would be justified in affirming the existence of Pythagoras is unclear.

Andrew Criddle

[neilgodfrey]

"Existence" is the wrong word to use in historical inquiry. For Zoroaster, or Akhanaten, Hammurabi, or Priam, we have such and such literature, reports, or evidence. As with photographical images of the most distant galaxies in the known universe, we know how poor the evidence is for a true knowledge of the object. But the existence and the report are not separated in one's theory of knowledge, nor need they be.

The way philosophers of history frame the discussion is to point out that the past is dead and gone. It does not "exist" somewhere still and waiting for us to somehow uncover and see what it looked like. History is created in our imaginations with the raw materials of the sources. The way the past was can never be fully seen or grasped.

"Exists" is a weasel word. If some popular author, reputed to be an authority, declares with unctuous finality that "Jesus existed," we receive the statement as though the existence of a man could be ascertained and understood separately from the accounts of him, and as though his existence were something distinct from his identity, character, context, and reputation. No one doubts that we have accounts of a man Jesus of Nazareth as of someone who actually lived. But whether the person depicted was an actual man in history, one and the same as the "Christ" reported in Pliny or Tacitus or the Odes of Solomon, or the "Jesus" of gThomas, or the "Jesus Christ" of 2 Thessalonians and Revelation--these are different questions, and impossible to answer.

I believe we can legitimately say that Julius Caesar existed. By that we don't mean we know the ancient person as his contemporaries knew him. His existence is in our imaginations mediated by the sources and how own various fantasies etc. We may be able to "know" some elements of him as they come to us through different sources in the same way many people "know" their political leaders as filtered through propaganda mechanisms and ideological reporting.

Whether some Jesus behind the gospels story "existed" in the same sense we understand other persons like Julius Caesar existed is a somewhat different question than thinking he is the same figure as reported by Tacitus or other Christian literature. There were, for instance, two Nero figures: pre and post 68CE. The latter was thought to "exist" somewhere in the east waiting to return to Rome. Not the same people, strictly.

And the fact that 4 distinct and irreconcilable representations of the quasi-historical man are handed down is also marginalized. But these problems are immediately marginalized once the debate is simplified at the outset to the cartoonish binary, "Did Jesus exist, or didn't he?" Which doesn't even touch the problem that in modern cultures, Jesus is a god to whom people pray.

What interests me is not the question, "Did Jesus exist?" but the question of the origin of the gospel narratives and Christian narratives and beliefs. That's the historical question that the sources do enable us to explore to some extent.

The point of my question, ultimately I think, is that the question "Did Jesus exist" is not worth asking because we cannot even get to first base if we apply the standards used in other historical inquiries.

All to say, the question "who is X" and "how is X represented to us" cannot be separated from "did X exist"? I feel like the whole existence debate creates unnecessary confusion about the fundamental questions.

Perhaps, but think of Julius Caesar or Socrates (or anyone else from our historical narratives) and I think we do indeed separate those questions. The "did X exist" question is taken for granted -- it gives meaning to the historical narrative itself. -- (I am not an extreme postmodernist here who denies the possibility and importance of "the actual past"). We have controls by means of which we can guide our discussions of Julius Caesar and Socrates along the lines of historical reconstruction. But we have no such controls for Jesus: all discussions about him can never be anything more than discussions about mythical developments. Whether there was also a historical Jesus behind any of the myth is impossible to determine and quite irrelevant to our discussions. I think you are saying something similar? or not?

I appreciate the work of Doherty, because what he was really getting it is the question whether a convincing argument can be made that any historical Jesus of Nazareth was the historical cause of the Christian religion. When Carrier tries to transform the discussion into a quasi-scientific analysis of probable existence vs. probable mythicality (sorry to have to invent that word), the whole thing goes sideways.

Yes, the point that historians work with "probabilities" needs some (a lot of) qualification. Historians are very particular about getting their raw facts right and justified. What is left to the realm of probability is a causal or other explanatory argument. There is rarely any probability about the facts themselves -- at least not unless a historian wants to earn the censure of his more critical colleagues.

If there is nothing more than a probability that Jesus either existed or did not exist then that automatically removes him from the discussion of Chrisitan origins -- except as the figure we find in our sources, the figure of literature and myth. I agree that little has been added to Doherty's case and that some attempts to build on Doherty have produced results that are inferior to Doherty's work.

[neilgodfrey]

Pythagoras is probably a better parallel.

With Socrates there is IMO very little doubt that a man called Socrates was executed by the Athenians c 400 BCE. There is IMO real doubt whether he resembled at all the figure depicted in the surviving sources but that is another issue.

Whether by your criteria we would be justified in affirming the existence of Pythagoras is unclear.

Andrew Criddle

I have a neat little (biggish-little) collection addressing the evidence for Pythagoras and have given this example quite some thought over the years. On my last foray into this question I think I concluded that "the probability" of his existence was stronger than that he did not exist.

There probably will always be figures in the grey middle zone of uncertainty. But what makes them uncertain is that they do meet the two "conditions" I propose -- but those conditions that normally help us decide on historicity do not always do so. I'm thinking here of Jesus ben Ananias whom I was going to post about separately. Having said that, I can't think of any person about whom doubt is reasonably raised whose historicity matters. We have the myth and whether it is historically based or not is immaterial to everything else available to us: it is the myth that had the presence and life in history.

[neilgodfrey]

In discussions with maryhelena and Giuseppe I referred to Jesus b Ananias in Josephus. I think I said that he met the two conditions:

#1 -- historical report by a contemporary
#2 -- other sources allow us to attribute credence to Josephus

But there is nothing mechanical about it. If those 2 "conditions" are needed to get us to first base, then what appears there still needs to be analysed.

Jesus b Ananias strikes me as too, too much like a Cassandra trope -- appearing among a list of miraculous signs pointing to divinely ordained doom, and the presumed madness, the failure of others to listen -- surely a literary trope more than a historical person.

[neilgodfrey]

Thinking more on what I wrote above:

We have the myth and whether it is historically based or not is immaterial to everything else available to us: it is the myth that had the presence and life in history.

and

the question "Did Jesus exist" is not worth asking because we cannot even get to first base if we apply the standards used in other historical inquiries.

Just to be clear (hopefully) -- the question that our sources allow us to historically research is "What produced them?" or "What led to this collection of 'Christian' literature?"

I suppose we could ask, "What gave rise to Christianity?" but that one is more difficult because of the problem of defining Christianity and its relation to Judaism (whatever Judaism was). It is easier to ask what gave rise to Christian institutions in a later period of history.

If, on the other hand, we had reasonable grounds [i.e. conditions #1 and #2?] for thinking a "historical Jesus" did in fact do and say things that started the ball rolling then that would give us the possibility of asking different questions -- assuming that there would be some context to the sources that enable us to treat that Jesus as historical. But we don't, so the best the sources allow us to ask is: "Hello, What's this and how did it get here?"

[Giuseppe]

(I am not an extreme postmodernist here who denies the possibility and importance of "the actual past").

Neil, can an example of "post-modernist who denies etc" be the author of this book on history? Or do you mean others? Thanks for the info.