NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Peter Kirby
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NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

Post by Peter Kirby »

MrMacSon wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:19 pm
Paul the Uncertain wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:56 am
From the author's website https://www.jesushoax.com/book
Could it be that Jesus, the miracle-working Son of God, never existed? That he was merely a man, a social agitator, who managed to get crucified? Yes--or so argues Prof David Skrbina in this compelling and even shocking new book. The weight of evidence strongly suggests that the biblical Jesus never existed, and that what we read in the Bible is an elaborate scheme, a hoax, regarding a divine god-man who came to earth to save humanity.
That's consistent with a "minimal" historical Jesus, a rejection of the historical accuracy of the Gospel Jesus and Jesus of Faith, while accepting the ontological existence of a real man who actually lived.
.
(This is not a dig at Paul, but merely using Paul's post to make a point about a common trope in the discussion of whether there was a historical Jesus and, if so, that he was different to the NT Jesus.)

The proposition that the NT or Gospel Jesus was vastly or even completely different to 'the historical Jesus' would leave 'the historical Jesus' without a shed of evidence. Nil. None. Nada. Zip.

It's a false dichotomy.

The term 'the historical Jesus', especially in that context, is a kind of reverse poisoning-the-well fallacy: say, a 'filling-the-well' fallacy.
Can you make this more concrete?

For example, J. D. Crossan's vision of Jesus. Is it incompatible with there being a "shred of evidence"? Or does it imply "Nil. None. Nada. Zip."?

Why or why not?
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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:38 pm
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:27 pm For example, J. D. Crossan's vision of Jesus. Is it incompatible with there being a "shred of evidence"?
  • Hi Peter. What is J.D. Crossan's vision of Jesus?
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/j ... ossan.html
Crossan in The Historical Jesus explains that his methodology is to take what is known about the historical Jesus from the earliest, most widely attested data and set it in a socio-historical context. The bulk of the common sayings tradition is relevant to the situation that existed in the 20s of the first century in Galilee in which the agrarian peasantry were being exploited as the Romans were commercializing the area. The historical Jesus, according to Crossan, was a displaced Galilean peasant artisan who had got fed up with the situation and went about preaching a radical message: an egalatarian vision of the Kingdom of God present on earth and available to all as manifested in the acts of Jesus in healing the sick and practicing an open commensality in which all were invited to share. The historical Jesus was an itinerant whose mode of teaching can be understood on analogy with the Cynic sage but who was nonetheless a Jew who believed that the kingdom was being made available by the God of Israel to his people. The revolutionary message of Jesus was seen to be subversive to the Roman vision of order and led to the fateful execution of Jesus by Pilate on a hill outside of Jerusalem.
Crossan also explores the development of two different traditions from the historical Jesus, the Jerusalem tradition in which Jesus is believed to be the resurrected Christ, and the Q Gospel tradition in which Jesus is remembered as the founder of a way of life. For the former, Crossan reconstructs a group in the city of Jerusalem who shared everything in common and awaited the coming of Christ in power. For the latter, Crossan identifies Q, the Gospel of Thomas, and the Didache in which itinerants preach the teachings of Jesus and are supported by sometimes-critical communities. Both traditions are connected in their practice of share-meals and their origins in the historical Jesus.
“Jesus’ death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate is as sure as anything historical can ever be. For if no follower of Jesus had written anything for one hundred years after his crucifixition, we would still know about him from two authors not among his supporters. Their names are Flavius Josephus and Cornelius Tacitus.”
– John Dominic Crossan in Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, p. 145
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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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An interesting commentary on this is John Crossley's Jesus in an Age of Neoliberalism: Quests, Scholarship and Ideology, 2014
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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:27 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:19 pm
Paul the Uncertain wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:56 am
From the author's website https://www.jesushoax.com/book
Could it be that Jesus, the miracle-working Son of God, never existed? That he was merely a man, a social agitator, who managed to get crucified? Yes--or so argues Prof David Skrbina in this compelling and even shocking new book. The weight of evidence strongly suggests that the biblical Jesus never existed, and that what we read in the Bible is an elaborate scheme, a hoax, regarding a divine god-man who came to earth to save humanity.
That's consistent with a "minimal" historical Jesus, a rejection of the historical accuracy of the Gospel Jesus and Jesus of Faith, while accepting the ontological existence of a real man who actually lived.
.
(This is not a dig at Paul, but merely using Paul's post to make a point about a common trope in the discussion of whether there was a historical Jesus and, if so, that he was different to the NT Jesus.)

The proposition that the NT or Gospel Jesus was vastly or even completely different to 'the historical Jesus' would leave 'the historical Jesus' without a shed of evidence. Nil. None. Nada. Zip.

It's a false dichotomy.

The term 'the historical Jesus', especially in that context, is a kind of reverse poisoning-the-well fallacy: say, a 'filling-the-well' fallacy.
Can you make this more concrete?
More specifically:

At what point does a portrayal of the historical Jesus become "vastly or even completely different to" the NT Jesus? For example, have Crossan and J. P. Meier and E. P. Sanders and Gerd Theissen crossed the line into presenting one that is "vastly or even completely different to" the NT Jesus? I don't know what authors you've read. Maybe just point out who you have read that do or do not cross that line for you.

And once it crosses that line, how do you know that a necessary consequence is that, therefore, there is no "shred of evidence. Nil. None. Nada. Zip." Surely I can't just take your word for it. Can you demonstrate why this is necessarily true?

This is a different claim than saying there is no shred of evidence. That may be your absolute opinion on the matter, but you're making an additional claim here. You're saying that there would not be evidence of a historical Jesus under certain conditions regarding the portrayal of who a historical Jesus would have been.

To me, this is a weird sort of philosophical maneuvering. I wonder if you can actually defend it, or if it is just nonsense, or if it might even possibly be true under a very specific set of conditions that you haven't fully enunciated.
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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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MrMacSon wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:56 pm
MrMacSon wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 1:19 pm
The proposition that the NT or Gospel Jesus was vastly or even completely different to 'the historical Jesus' would leave 'the historical Jesus' without a shed of evidence. Nil. None. Nada. Zip.

It's a false dichotomy.

The term 'the historical Jesus', especially in that context, is a kind of reverse poisoning-the-well fallacy: say, a 'filling-the-well' fallacy.
.
Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:31 pm
More specifically:

At what point does a portrayal of the historical Jesus become "vastly or even completely different to" the NT Jesus?


Peter Kirby wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 3:31 pm To me, this is a weird sort of philosophical maneuvering. I wonder if you can actually defend it, or if it is just nonsense, or if it might even possibly be true under a very specific set of conditions that you haven't fully enunciated.
There's frequently an abrasive, obnoxious aspect of your interactions with me; of your commentary about my posts. Get fucked, Cock.
I can be an abrasive and obnoxious person by nature. This is me trying to be civil, actually.

The questions are still there to be answered, regardless of the facts that I was the one who presented them and that the way I did so bothered you.
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Re: NTJ != HJ, ∴ no evidence of HJ?

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Again, more specifically:

At what point does a portrayal of the historical Jesus become "vastly or even completely different to" the NT Jesus? For example, have Crossan and J. P. Meier and E. P. Sanders and Gerd Theissen crossed the line into presenting one that is "vastly or even completely different to" the NT Jesus? I don't know what authors you've read. Maybe just point out who you have read that do or do not cross that line for you.

And once it crosses that line, how do you know that a necessary consequence is that, therefore, there is no "shred of evidence. Nil. None. Nada. Zip." Surely I can't just take your word for it. Can you demonstrate why this is necessarily true?
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