Why I think a historical Jesus is best explanation for earliest texts

[Paul the Uncertain]

Apart from the detailed exegesis of Pauline texts, I have real problems with the idea that Paul believed in a Jesus crucified on earth maybe centuries ago.

It would seem to require that Paul believed that the death of Jesus had radically changed the basis on which God' people should relate to God, but God had waited generations before revealing to anyone that this change had occurred. If one wishes to argue for such a delay, then IMO the onus is to provide positive evidence. It is not prima-facie the obvious way to read Paul.

Assuming that we agree that Paul doesn't explicitly offer a date or place for the crucifixion, then it is unclear how there could be any "obvious" way to read Paul as offering a date or place for the crucifixion.

Indeed, if it happened long before Paul's lifetime, then why had God waited generations to reveal it to anyone?

Alas, if it had happened during Paul's lifetime, then why had God waited generations for it to happen at all?

Hard enough to read Paul's mind; harder still to read his God's mind.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52

Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

It sounds like God has some flexibility in the timing of this plan Paul discovered. Even more, it sounds like Paul would have an answer to any challenge based on God's timing, whether the challenge was why wait so long for the crucifixion or why wait so long to share the relevant information about it.

[Giuseppe]

Hard enough to read Paul's mind; harder still to read his God's mind.

[Sinouhe]

Apart from the detailed exegesis of Pauline texts, I have real problems with the idea that Paul believed in a Jesus crucified on earth maybe centuries ago.

It would seem to require that Paul believed that the death of Jesus had radically changed the basis on which God' people should relate to God, but God had waited generations before revealing to anyone that this change had occurred. If one wishes to argue for such a delay, then IMO the onus is to provide positive evidence. It is not prima-facie the obvious way to read Paul.

Andrew Criddle

I don't see any problem.
The death and resurrection of Jesus are not the finality of the forgiveness of sins, it’s only one step of the processus.
Otherwise, the work of the apostles and the Parousia would be for nothing, wouldn't it?

The Death/resurrection is the beginning of the mystery, the first fruits of it (Romans 16:25-26).
Once the mystery is revealed, the apostles must preach the gospel (the good news) to the whole world.
Thanks to the apostles, those who believe in Christ will be saved.
But it is the Parousia and the Last Judgment that will be the fulfillment of Jesus’s mission.
It is only at the time of his Parousia that Jesus will judge men and that Christians will be resurrected.

Therefore, it makes sense that the death/resurrection was a mystery revealed much later to these apostles since it is not the finality.

I see three steps in Paul's theology:

1/ Jesus sacrifices himself to save humanity and rises in heaven. (Isaiah)

2/ This mystery is revealed to few chosen ones, the apostles who must spread the good news to the world (Isaiah). Those who believe will be saved.

3/ Jesus will come in glory to judge men and this way, the sin of Adam will definitively forgiven since it is only at that time that living and dead Christians will be resurrected to be in communion in heaven with Christ (Isaiah & Daniel - 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 / 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).

All of this comes from a special interpretation of the scriptures. Paul associates the suffering servant with the Son of Man in Daniel (the servant dies to save men, the Son of Man will come in glory, the kingdom will be given to him, and the dead will rise in heaven).

The revelation of the past is sometimes recounted long after the fact. If we rely on Jewish tradition, we have the example of the story of Adam which was revealed centuries later to Moses.
So, no, I don't see any problem with the secret of Jesus' death being revealed long after the supposed events.
Especially since I assume that this sacrifice never took place, it’s a myth based on the interpretation that Paul and his fellow apostles had of the Book of Isaiah.

[dbz]

But the choice is not between and HJ or an MJ, the choice is very simple really: there is no evidence for any living Jesus ever having lived, and most certainly there will never be any evidence for someone performing miracles and riding from the dead

I'd argue that Paul is evidence for some kind of Jesus, a man who lived in Paul's recent past: a Jew, seed of David, first-fruits of the resurrection. All those things that have been argued often on this board. People disagree, and that's fine.

What I'd like to point out is that few people think that there was a Gospel Jesus...

''Some guy who really lived'' - Are you really serious that you can argue such a position ? With a straight face? . . . Thousands of men (assuming your HJ is a male) walked the sands of Palestine - and as spin would say - historicity requires evidence. Existence does not bestow historicity.

Philip J. Rayment, a former Conservapedia editor, argues:

"[IF] the validity of those ancient books could be established, there is indeed reason to believe that the teapot exists, and thus the presumption in the argument is false."

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"Russell's Teapot". RationalWiki.

IMO an unfalsifiable historical Yesus personage is being created as is the teapot in space. A historical Yesus personage cannot be disproved any more than a teapot in orbit! At the end of the day it can be indeterminate: either H1==teapot or H2==no_teapot.

IMO, it is humourous that Rayment says, "there is indeed reason to believe that the teapot exists" if "the validity of those [hypothetical] ancient books could be established".

[GakuseiDon]

IMO an unfalsifiable historical Yesus personage is being created as is the teapot in space. A historical Yesus personage cannot be disproved any more than a teapot in orbit! At the end of the day it can be indeterminate: either H1==teapot or H2==no_teapot.

Out of interest, what do you think of a Bayesian approach to the question of historicity? Dr Carrier believes the answer can be expressed as a probability, with best odds for historicity being 1-in-3 (so mythicism is three times more likely than historicity) to worst odds for historicity (from memory) being 1-in-12,000 (so mythicism 12000 times more likely)

I love Carrier's approach and I think there is value in its application. It doesn't get you 0 or 1, but neither do most questions in ancient history.

[John2]

But he gives us a very good clue to try to do so: his source for Jesus is the OT. So let's be pragmatic and be satisfied with this information.

First of all, if i believe him, and I have no reason not to, then the life of Jesus is in the scriptures so we don't necessarily need to search for a man who died recently and to invoke an inaccessible hypothetical oral tradition from Jesus’ relatives or disciples.

Do you think the same thing about the Teacher of Righteousness in the Dead Sea Scrolls? His followers believed his life and death were predicted in the OT. Did they create a fictional Teacher by using the OT, or do you think the Teacher was real and his followers applied the OT to his life and death?

[Leucius Charinus]

I think my theory is consistent with what we see in Paul and other early epistles.

Can you list the assumptions that are being used as the foundation stones for your theory?

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* Paul wrote the letters generally attributed to him. Provenance and dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* Paul was a historical figure who lived around 50s CE. Dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* The gMark author wrote around 70s CE. Provenance and dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* Peter and James were historical figures, whom Paul met. I'm assuming those parts are genuine to Paul.
* Paul believed that Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in Paul's recent past. Jesus was crucified and was thought to have been raised by God to heaven.
* The gMark author knew Paul's writings, and so placed Jesus's crucifixion in the time of Pilate

It seems to me that the assumption of an historical Paul is foundational to the argument for an historical Jesus. That is, the historicity of Jesus implicitly relies on the historicity of Paul. Would you agree with that?

If so, upon what foundational evidence does the historicity of Paul rely? I just don't see any. Paul is not mentioned by any writer in antiquity outside of the church. Except by Seneca. But nobody wants to go there and for good reason.

[dbz]

Out of interest, what do you think of a Bayesian approach to the question of historicity?

I think a Bayesian methodology is the correct approach to the evidence per competing H1 & H2. And a panel of leading Scholars (like Phds, professors, etc.) needs to be formed to publish their findings on the use of said Bayesian methodology. Another panel should do the same for Carrier's (a)historicity findings.

[3:16:29] I was thinking like if I if I ran into millions of dollars—suddenly won the lottery or something. One of the things that I would do is, I would go to the Westar Institute, and I'd say I'm going to fund you. I'm gonna give you like a million bucks and what I want you to do is—I want you to get a panel together of leading Scholars like Phds, professors, etc.. Pay them, literally pay them to read the book and pay them to write considered reviews not—just reviews that are half-assed and polemical or whatever—but like take this seriously, this is your job, we're paying you to do this, write a reasonable considered review of this book and then turn this into a book. The Westar Institute would publish it just like all the other Jesus seminar projects that they've done. I think that would be the most valuable things we could do. We could just get Scholars to read it and to write their honest opinion about it. I think [currently], we're getting dishonest opinions about it. We're getting polemics, we're getting apologetics—no one who's got an even-keel. Like an objective interest in doing the work of like reading the book and doing an honest sort of like effective review of the book. That's what we need, and I think the pressure campaign is just convincing people to avoid it. It's a third rail, so no one wants to do it. I think the only way to get around that is to pay them to do it, and so we need some like some philanthropist who will just literally just pay people to do it. [3:18:00]

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"The History Of Mythicism & A Shifting Consensus w/ Dr. Richard Carrier". @time:03:16:29. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 2 March 2023.

[GakuseiDon]

I think my theory is consistent with what we see in Paul and other early epistles.

Can you list the assumptions that are being used as the foundation stones for your theory?

///

* Paul wrote the letters generally attributed to him. Provenance and dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* Paul was a historical figure who lived around 50s CE. Dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* The gMark author wrote around 70s CE. Provenance and dating based on tradition and internal evidence.
* Peter and James were historical figures, whom Paul met. I'm assuming those parts are genuine to Paul.
* Paul believed that Jesus was a Jewish man who lived in Paul's recent past. Jesus was crucified and was thought to have been raised by God to heaven.
* The gMark author knew Paul's writings, and so placed Jesus's crucifixion in the time of Pilate

It seems to me that the assumption of an historical Paul is foundational to the argument for an historical Jesus. That is, the historicity of Jesus implicitly relies on the historicity of Paul. Would you agree with that?

Depends on the theory. For my 'minimal historical' Jesus, it does. My theory relies on an early writer who saw Jesus as "humble", "obedient unto death", "emptied" and crucified by archons in ignorance. That is consistent with other early literature that seems to be an attempt to explain why the Son of God wasn't a Hercules or some other mighty hero figure. Different from the figure we see in the Gospels. Some parts of my theory might survive if, say, Marcion wrote the letters of Paul in the early Second Century, but I'd have to rethink it all.

If so, upon what foundational evidence does the historicity of Paul rely? I just don't see any. Paul is not mentioned by any writer in antiquity outside of the church. Except by Seneca. But nobody wants to go there and for good reason.

Paul is a literary figure as much as Jesus is. Nearly everyone living before 1000 CE exists as literary figures. If you or I are known in any way in a thousand year's time, we will be literary figures reconstructed from our Internet writings. The question is: why does the literary figure exist? That's when we start with assumptions. The foundational evidence for the historicity of Paul relies on those assumptions.

[neilgodfrey]

Nearly everyone living before 1000 CE exists as literary figures. If you or I are known in any way in a thousand year's time, we will be literary figures reconstructed from our Internet writings. The question is: why does the literary figure exist? That's when we start with assumptions. The foundational evidence for the historicity of Paul relies on those assumptions.

The question is not whether Jesus, Paul, Socrates, Alexander the Great, are literary figures -- of course they are, by definition: anyone delineated for us in literature is by definition a literary figure.

The question is whether there is historical evidence for literary figures having a historical existence outside that literature. Historians have methods for arriving at such conclusions. Biblical scholars find that those methods do not work for the figures they need to be historical so they devise other methods that have no place in the works of other historians.

I shall suggest that, from the viewpoint of a professional historian, there is a good deal in the methods and assumptions of most present-day biblical scholars that makes one not just a touch uneasy, but downright queasy. -- Akenson