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

[Sinouhe]

If Paul is treating Isaiah 53 as prophecy, then he'd believe that Jesus lived at some time after Isaiah.

I don't think he would consider Isaiah 53 as prophetic as opposed to other verses in Isaiah.

Isaiah 53 is special since it is written in the past tense.

You may wish to consider whether Isaiah is using the "prophetic perfect tense" (searchable).

It is indeed possible.
But it is not what Isaiah thought that matters, but how Paul interpreted Isaiah.

[lclapshaw]

I have absolutely no knowledge of the Greek or Latin or any other ancient language. I'm reliant on the interpretations of those with those expertise. Unfortunately many of those experts have interpreted the ancient texts with a traditional view of the literature in mind.

Exactly. This is not ideal.

I'm finding koine Greek very easy to learn, especially with the Pauline material. A lot of it is just the same words over and over. Oak=not, kai=and, estin=is etc and if you can follow Yoda of Star Wars in a conversation then koine presents no problem.

Try to spend half an hour a couple times a week translating the NT into regular classic Greek. Soon it'll become easy and it will be worth it. When you have the unbiased text in front of you, you can then come to a better informed understanding.

[dbz]

Mark had a reason quite independent of Paul for dating his narrative to the generation prior to the destruction of Jerusalem: -- a study of his gospel demonstrates that his Jesus is a metaphor/personification of the ideal Israel who was made available as the replacement for the Mosaic Israel from 70 CE.

[1:24:48] Then finally they get to the Jordan, and you know the original Jesus—Joshua. It's the same name (people don't know the original). Jesus parts the Jordan and the Jews run into Palestine and conquer and so on and that that's the narrative right—the Jesus narrative. Jesus goes to the Jordan, essentially parts the Jordan by baptism right. Symbolically he's parting the Jordan—although the parting is heaven—so it says when Jesus is being baptized the heavens parted you know right. And then where does Jesus go? He goes the opposite direction. He goes into the desert where he is tempted just like the Jews were, and the same temptations there (similar theme—patience) but he he passes the test.

What he has done is, he's undone the curse that the Jews cost themselves in the exodus, by basically fixing what they broke and then Jesus goes on his mission and so on. This is classic myth, anyone who studied mythology and any other religion and any other culture recognizes what's going on... [1:25:47]

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"Misquoting Mythicism: Syncretism and Dying/Rising God Parallels w/ Richard Carrier". @time:01:24:48. YouTube. Godless Engineer. 20 December 2019.

Following is a companion article reiterating and expanding on what we discuss in that video.
[...]
Mark is reversing the “Moses in the wilderness” narrative, where the Jews went through temptations in the desert and failed, then crossed the Jordan into the holy land. In both cases by “Jesus” miraculously parting the Jordan: Joshua, remember, is the same name. Mark has Jesus “part the Jordan” symbolically through baptism. He even retains the literal reference to a “parting” with the parting of “the heavens” that Mark adds to the story. The Jesus story then reverses the Joshua story: Jesus leaves the Holy Land to reenter the desert and be tempted and this time succeed, thus reversing and thereby undoing the failure of the Israelites of old. As several peer reviewed scholars have noted, the specific temptations are even paralleled; and like the Israelites, Jesus is miraculously fed in the desert. This is as obviously myth as the Barabbas narrative.

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--Carrier (22 December 2019). "Tim O'Neill & the Biblical History Skeptics on Mythicism". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[Paul the Uncertain]

It is indeed possible.
But it is not what Isaiah thought that matters, but how Paul interpreted Isaiah.

Agreed, of course, but therein lies a problem. As another member puts it, snidely but accurately, we can't read Paul's mind. All we can go by is what's on the page, and we're having this conversation because what's on the page doesn't place Paul's estimate of when the exaltation of Jesus took place at any specific time.

To be candid, I'm not sure there even was such an estimate. Scripture tells Paul that it happened. He has seen with his own mind's eyes that it has happened. Hundreds of others, he professes, have seen what he's seen, many of whom are still alive as he's writing. The balloon has gone up! The general resurrection* is happening. What difference does it now make how long or how long ago the "three days" were or how much time elapsed between them and Peter's meeting with the risen Jesus?

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* What is a "resurrection" exactly? It's not as if we, or Paul, had plenty of examples to work with.

Is it, for example, a mutli-step process in which the dead person regains consciousness and mobility, then takes up celestial residence, and then resumes interaction with earthly events? In other words, was Jesus's resurrection still incomplete and in process until he resumed earthly social activity (appearing to people like Peter and finally Paul)?

The gospels finesse the question by placing the first earthly appearances of the risen Jesus within hours of his regaining mobility. There's nothing about that in Paul. John takes the trouble to have his Jesus tell Mary Magdalene that he's appearing to her before ascending to heaven, and so before appearing to Peter. Paul says nothing about when Jesus ascended into heaven relative to his appearance to Peter. After his first earthly meeting (as John states in as many words)? Or before? If before, then how much before?

That John takes the trouble to insert that bit of gratuitous exposition is foundation for the hypothesis that some ancients had Jesus ascend first. It is a possible interpretation of a Mark that ends at 16:8, for example, and some performances of Mark did end there in ancient times.

[andrewcriddle]

This is Ye Same Old Circularity that has given rise to the debate in the first place:

I think some kind of a historical Jesus is the best explanation for the existence of the earliest texts -- the letters of Paul and the Gospel of Mark.

The ONLY reason the Gospel of Mark is dated as one of the "earliest" texts, generally to the first century, is because of the ASSUMPTION that its story is derived, via oral tradition, from a historical Jesus who is the subject of the narrative. Oral tradition won't work if the Gospel is dated by the normative methods used by ancient historians and classicists for dating other ancient texts---- that is, beginning with their earliest independent attestation and working back from there. HJ scholars usually explicitly refer to Mark 13 as a pointer to the year 70 but other explanations (and problems with that argument) are bypassed in favour of the dating that is based on the assumption of Oral Tradition sourced from a HJ.

I think we have good reason to believe that Mark was used as a source by Matthew and Luke quite independently of ones views about a historical Jesus. In itself this does not provide an absolute date for Mark.

However, if one accepts that Ignatius knew Mark and accept a dating for Ignatius in the early 2nd century CE, (before Bar Kochba), then Mark is either 1st century or very very early 2nd century.

Ditto for Paul. The earliest independent attestation for these letters is in a web of controversy about who he was and what he wrote. The fact that epistolary fictions were a well-known literary genre of the day is ignored.

Ditto again for the claim about Paul's list of resurrection appearances: If that list is read through gospel eyes then yes, we can assume those to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection were his followers.... until we continue reading and run into the 500 and Paul himself. Those names break the theory that we should read Paul's list through gospel perspectives.

The appearance to Paul is clearly different to the others. Paul may have regarded the 500 as followers of Jesus before his death, (This may or may not cause problems with the Gospels and Acts but that does not mean Paul did not hold this position.) The use of the term brothers/brethren may imply that the 500 were regarded by Paul as followers of Jesus at the time of their encounter with the risen Christ.

Andrew Criddle

[dbz]

The appearance to Paul is clearly different to the others. Paul may have regarded the 500 as followers of Jesus before his death...

Probably no auditory element was present, no verbal revelation, not only because none is recorded (not even in Acts), but that would have made this into an apostolic election. And Paul clearly does not think it was. These brethren did not become, and thus are not described as, apostles. The apostles appear in the next verse.

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--Carrier (28 June 2018). "Then He Appeared to Over Five Hundred Brethren at Once!". Richard Carrier Blogs.

[neilgodfrey]

I like the tomb story, learned something new

It comes from: Hanhart, Karel. The Open Tomb: A New Approach, Mark’s Passover Haggadah ([ca.] 72 C.e.). Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1995.

[neilgodfrey]

However, if one accepts that Ignatius knew Mark and accept a dating for Ignatius in the early 2nd century CE, (before Bar Kochba), then Mark is either 1st century or very very early 2nd century.

This is the sort of problem we get with so much of NT dating of texts. Where else are entire schools of hypotheses built on such known-uncertainties?

[neilgodfrey]

I should add that I have no problem with any hypothesis that dates Mark as early as 70 -- but I simply don't see the methods used to "establish" NT dates like this to be valid. They are circular or rest on the quicksand of hypotheticals.

[lclapshaw]

However, if one accepts that Ignatius knew Mark and accept a dating for Ignatius in the early 2nd century CE, (before Bar Kochba), then Mark is either 1st century or very very early 2nd century.

This is the sort of problem we get with so much of NT dating of texts. Where else are entire schools of hypotheses built on such known-uncertainties?

Exactly!