Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:22 pm**

GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 1:06 pm Yes, that sounds reasonable. I was thinking of your point in terms of your earlier comment on this thread: "I'd be looking for some explicit acknowledgment from O'Neill (or whomever) that the contrary opinion is rationally tenable before declaring victory." But what if one has found there is no rationally tenable position on the contrary side? (I'm not saying that there isn't, only if one has investigated and haven't found one) There is barely enough evidence to find for the historicity side. In Bayesian terms, it's possible to find one position has slightly more evidence than its converse, i.e. "historical" vs "not historical", without requiring a rational contrary opinion to represent the converse.

A Bayesian would only find an utter absence of a rationally tenable alternative view if their confidence in their own view was nearly certain. I don't see how either side would get to that level of confidence in this controversy by Bayesian means, or at least not by anything I've ever heard or read O'Neill point to. I didn't ask that O'Neill find that the opposite of every opinion he holds is rationally tenable. I asked him for that only in this specific case.

Surely we have many more examples of "A recently deceased man soon came to be interpreted as a newly revealed god" than the other option? Many, many more. Certainly some of the early gnostics declared themselves to be gods and they had followers after the claimants' deaths that continued on with that belief.

Do you have evidence that Jesus declared himself to be a god while he was alive? That'd be cool, since he'd have to be a real man who actually lived to do that, and if the evidence were good enough, we'd have our answer to one question anyway.

If we had to build a reference class containing examples of both groups, how many would there be of "a newly revealed god soon came to be interpreted as a recently deceased man"? John Frum perhaps, though opinion is split on his origin (person or spirit). Any others?

I explained the basis of my prior assessment, and it wasn't the construction of a reference class. I know that Richard Carrier is fond of setting his priors by what he thinks a reference class is. De gustibus non disputandum. In setting my priors, I am mindful that we are not discussing Christian origins because Christianity is typical of ancient religious innovations, but rather because it is exorbitantly atypical of them.

How many people worship John Frum, a character who owes his existence, real or fictive, in part to a popular protest against the excesses of Christian missionaries?

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:45 pm**

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:22 pm
Do you have evidence that Jesus declared himself to be a god while he was alive? That'd be cool, since he'd have to be a real man who actually lived to do that, and if the evidence were good enough, we'd have our answer to one question anyway.

I take Jesus to be doing precisely that by declaring himself to be Daniel's "son of man" figure and that saying so during his trial in Mk. 14:61-64 resulted in his execution for blasphemy (as per Boyarin).

Again the high priest questioned Him, “Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?”

“I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

At this, the high priest tore his clothes and declared, “Why do we need any more witnesses? You have heard the blasphemy.

As Boyarin puts it:

We learn several key things from [Mk. 14:62]. The first ... is that "Messiah" is for Jesus equivalent to the "Son of Man." Second, we learn that claiming to be the Son of Man was considered blasphemy by the high priest and thus a claim not only to messianic status but also to divinity ....

When Jesus answers "I am," he is going even further than merely claiming messianic status, for "I Am," eigo eimi, is precisely what YHVH calls himself when Moses asks his name: "This is what you are to say to the Israelites, 'I am [eigo eimi] has sent me to you' " (Exodus 3:14). The high priest of the Jews could hardly be expected to miss this allusion. Jesus claims to be the Son of God, the Son of Man, and indeed God himself. A statement such as that is not merely true or false; it is truth or blasphemy. It is also the same blasphemy of which Jesus was accused in chapter 2, when he presumed the divine prerogative of forgiving sins.

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:58 pm**

I don't think that's quite the situation the other poster and I were discussing. But yes, if we accept the gospels as historically accurate, then we have our answer to whether Jesus was a real man who actually lived.

Since some people do not accept the gospels as historically accurate, the uncertainty persists.

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:10 pm**

GakuseiDon wrote:
In the first podcast I linked to in the OP, Tim said:

2:52 I don't care whether Jesus existed or not, and if someone presented me with -- I've said this many times -- if someone presented me with what I thought was a good coherent and parsimonious explanation of of how a Christianity arose that didn't involve a historical Jesus I'd be happy to embrace it

3:15 [So] why don't I accept the forms plural of mythicism that are around, or any of the, the previous forms that have been around the last 150 years or so? Well, because I don't consider them to be parsimonious [You can come up with, uh, all kinds of ways to, to take the evidence that we have - in other words, the, the 'source material' - the various bits and pieces that we have in, from, from the ancient world and construct stories. But what historians do is they come up with, with, uh, wha-what they consider to be 'the most parsimonious', the most likely, uh, reading of that evidence.¹ It's never, it's never definitive; it's never, it's never complete-, er, you can't prove stuff in ancient history. But what historians do is they say, 'well, given all of this, and given its context, and given the best way to read, it is poss-, probably this, then it's most likely that this happened.'] [the next bit, from 4.17, is interesting re Tim's personal history]

12:00 Why do I find it unconvincing? Occam's Razor, that's why. Now that's not to say it's impossible. So I've often said, and being quoted out of context, saying that it's entirely possible that there was no Jesus...

[box]

Those appeals to parsimony and Occam's Razor are simply empty rhetoric

12:42+ ... If someone presented me with a case that didn't involve the kind of ad hoc workarounds and some really tangled and contrived stuff to try and make it work, then I'd be convinced. But what we're presented with so far, I just don't think it's convincing at all ...

More rhetoric: not just simple but also lazy. It's fallacious wibble.

At least O'Neill does kind-of strongman of mythicism in amongst those quotes:

9.08 ... it [mythicism] requires us to believe in what I refer to as a kind of a layer cake of suppositions. We have to say, 'well, you know, imagine if there was a, a form of proto-Christianity that believed in a celestial Jesus that didn't come to Earth and did all this stuff in the heavens, died, you know, ah, was crucified, died, rose from the dead in the heavens. And then imagine that they, this form of Christianity started to tell stories about Jesus that were set on Earth. And not set on Earth in some prehistoric, ancient inaccessible period but actually set on Earth quite recently, uh, in the, in the early, early decades of the of the first century.

'And then imagine that other forms of Christianity arose that believed those stories were true and accepted that there was such a Jesus in the early decades of the first century. And then imagine that the proto-form of Christianity died out and then imagine that the forms of Christianity that arose from the, from the belief that there was a historical Jesus decided to destroy all references to the earlier form of Christianity.'

But he reverts to argument from incredulity (with his repeated "imagine/s"):

10:23
'And imagine that, instead of doing what they tended to do in the second and third centuries and, and refute what they regard as heretical early forms of Christianity, they didn't do that with this one. They decided to ignore it completely and pretend it didn't exist. And imagine that all of the critics of Christianity didn't point to the evidence any surviving evidence of this early former Christianity and say, "hey, what about these guys? They say that Jesus didn't exist at all."

'And imagine that as a result no one noticed that this early proto-form of Christianity - the original form - existed at all until people in the 19th and 20th Century came along and discovered it by looking at the writings of Paul.'

11:08
I can't remember how many times I've just said, 'imagine that.' But there's layer after layer after layer of supposition there and the evidence to support any of that is flimsy at best, contrived, I would argue. And, and actually extremely unconvincing.

Compared to that we have the idea that there was a guy. And given that all of 'the evidence' that we do have1 agrees that there was a guy, we've got no sources at all that talk about any form of Christianity that believed certainly, explicitly, um, but, I would argue, none that talk about a form of Christianity that believed in a purely celestial Jesus.

The whole thing is built on suppositions. And Occam's Razor makes short work of a, a thesis that is built on suppositions. So, to answer your question, 'why do I find it unconvincing?' Occam's Razor. That's why. Now, that's not to say it's impossible, so I've often said, uh, and being quoted out of context saying that it's entirely possible that there was no Jesus ...

1. it's not 'evidence' that says, 'there was a guy' (it's interpretation of a body of literature)

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:10 pm**

Paul the Uncertain wrote: ↑Fri Mar 03, 2023 3:58 pm I don't think that's quite the situation the other poster and I were discussing. But yes, if we accept the gospels as historically accurate, then we have our answer to whether Jesus was a real man who actually lived.

Since some people do not accept the gospels as historically accurate, the uncertainty persists.

I know all we can do is guess, and I'm comfortable with the idea that Jesus was a real man who actually lived. To me this is the plain meaning of the NT and early post-NT writings (like Papias, Hegesippus), and the story in the gospels is in keeping with Josephus' description of Fourth Philosophic Judaism. If it seems uncertain to others, then I suppose that makes things "uncertain," but for me the idea that works best is that Jesus was a Fourth Philosopher who made his followers "act like madmen" (as Josephus puts it) and the gospel of Mark is a writing of one of these madmen. The evidence we have seems ample to me, and I think it indicates that Jesus thought of himself as a divine figure, is all.

Posted: **Fri Mar 03, 2023 5:24 pm**

JW:
O'Neill's motivation here, that "Mythicists" are giving Atheists a bad name, reminds me of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uel1vfAQ52M

Perhaps even more amazing than most of these Chrysticists belief that this Jesus sacrificed himself to himself and ended death by dying in order to put an end to His eternal Law, is that after writing so much on the subject O'Neill still does not understand what credibility means.

Joseph

http://thenewporphyry.blogspot.com/2021/02/has-there-ever-been-colonialization.html

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:04 am**

ABuddhist wrote: ↑Thu Mar 02, 2023 8:28 am
GakuseiDon wrote: ↑Wed Mar 01, 2023 8:12 pm I liked how he equates "Jesus will come back one day!" with "mythicism will be accepted by the academy one day!" It'll be interesting to see which one comes in first.
The problem with that equation is that scholars of Jesus who, as believing Christians, are at some level believing that Jesus will come back one day are more accepted within mainstream biblical scholarship than scholars who, when considering all of the sources, are willing to believe either that Jesus was not a historical person or that such rewmains at least possible. One set of beliefs is based upon faith in miracles involving a crucified criminal who bought us for a price from an uncreated creator god, and the other set of beliefs is based upon dispassionate analysis of texts which any literate person can study - yet the ones who accept miracles with regard to Jesus are better respected within mainstream biblical scholarship than the ones engaging in dispassionate analysis of texts and coming to conclusions which, if true, would render non-docetistic Standard Christianity false. This is a problem. And I write this as a nonmythicist.

It is a legitimate question as to what conclusion about Christian origins one should reach if one starts off rejecting standard Christianity.
IMHO the answer (from a useful list already provided in this thread) is probably

The gospels do not support a rounded figure but a historical Jesus of some sort probably existed

However this sort of approach may tend to raise formal possibilities that I find uninteresting.
I find the ideas that mid 1st century followers of Christ did not believe in an historical Jesus or that there were no mid 1st century followers of Christ interesting though unlikely. However, I find the idea that there were mid 1st century followers of Christ who believed in a Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate but that no such Jesus ever existed uninteresting. Although formally possible it seems prima-facie unlikely, and the sort of position which can neither be proved or disproved.

Andrew Criddle

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:56 am**

andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:04 am. However, I find the idea that there were mid 1st century followers of Christ who believed in a Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate but that no such Jesus ever existed uninteresting.

Andrew Criddle

Neither the disciples nor Pontius Pilate are mentioned in Paul's letters.

The question, if we focus on mid 1st century Christianity (before the legend written by Mark), would be rather :

Were there mid first century Christians who thought that a person they called Jesus had been crucified one day ?

The answer is yes: they are mentioned in Paul.

But is this enough to prove the historicity of this character?

Another question might be:

“Would we believe that Jesus was a historical figure if we did not have the gospel of Mark and his subsequent copies (M,L,J) ?”

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2023 4:31 am**

Sinouhe wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:56 am
andrewcriddle wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:04 am. However, I find the idea that there were mid 1st century followers of Christ who believed in a Jesus crucified under Pontius Pilate but that no such Jesus ever existed uninteresting.

Andrew Criddle

Neither the disciples nor Pontius Pilate are mentioned in Paul's letters.

Paul is clearly writing to other believers. I did not mean to necessarily imply by 'followers of Christ' disciples of the earthly Jesus. I avoided 'Christians' to prevent the reply followers of Christ were not called Christians in the mid 1st century. The early post-Pauline 1 Timothy mentions Pontius Pilate as Christ's judge, and the passage in Tacitus may imply that such a dating was generally held by mid 1st century Christians.

To clarify: I would regard the positions that mid 1st century CE followers of Christ believed he had been crucified on earth, but were unclear whether this had happened at all recently, as interesting but improbable, rather than uninteresting.

Sinouhe wrote: ↑Sat Mar 04, 2023 3:56 am The question, if we focus on mid 1st century Christianity (before the legend written by Mark), would be rather :

Were there mid first century Christians who thought that a person they called Jesus had been crucified one day ?
The answer is yes: they are mentioned in Paul.

But is this enough to prove the historicity of this character?

Another question might be:

“Would we believe that Jesus was a historical figure if we did not have the gospel of Mark and his subsequent copies (M,L,J) ?”

A belief that Jesus had been crucified recently does not formally prove his historicity, but (in the absence of creditable evidence to the contrary) it may make disputing his historicity uninteresting.

Mark and the other gospels add to our knowledge of what mid 1st century followers of Christ believed and hence provide additional evidence for the historicity of Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

Posted: **Sat Mar 04, 2023 4:41 am**

We seem to be getting into reformulations of the original problem (the ontological status of Jesus), and introducing a new issue (the usefulness of the canonical gospels as sources for Jesus's life).

Andrew reintroduces a list from dbz: viewtopic.php?p=150694#p150694

That list was a taxonomy of actively advocated opinions (levels of confidence over a particular hypothesis space, which was appropriate to the state of the discussion at that point). The hypothesis set given was a subet of historicity x source:

A) Jesus was a real man who actually lived and who was similar to the gospel figure
B) Jesus was a real man who actually lived but who was dissimilar from the gospel figure
C) Jesus was a fictional or mythological figure

The idea being that if Jesus was fictional or mythological, there is little interest in whether or not the canonical gospels tell a typical original version of the ancient myths about Jesus. Which seems a bit odd, since Carrier-Doherty is exactly the claim that Chrisitanity originates from a very different myth than what we read in the canonical gospels.

Correspondingly, Carrier-Doherty depends on analysis of a much wider range of sources than the canonical gospels, especially a way of reading Paul's letters as informed by non-canonical literature (e.g. Ascension of Isaiah, Philo ...). Carrier's only acknowledged use of the canonical gospels is to hash them into his version of a Rank-Raglan score.

I think, then, in reformulating the problem, we have actually moved on to a distinct problem. Carrier-Doherty seems to me to be very much on O'Neill's mind. The hypothesis set in the box lays out a worthy problem, but seems to set aside an issue that is important to the announced topic of the thread.

Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

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