Weighing up the evidence for the ‘Historical Jesus’

[outhouse]

There is a lot more out there than one thinks regarding Herod Antipas, Herodias, Pilate, Tiberius, Ananus, etc. Understanding them and their times sheds light on Jesus and his world.

Know the history, and use that as a base, and folks will have fewer questions about whatever reasonable speculations you might come to regarding the Christian religion.

Agree whole hearted.

[Sheshbazzar]

You have chosen to ignore this information and explanation, Because it doesn't agree with YOUR favored hypothesis.

Sheshbazzar

Im not interested in bias or conspiracy theories.

Except the perpetual promotion of your own blatant and myopic bias.
What I present is a natural outcome of centuries of philosophical, theological, and political maneuvering by Hellenistic forces bend upon on ridding acceptance into the religion of the Jews, of any obligations to be circumcised, or to follow the Mosaic Laws, the mishpahat rulings, or commanded traditions of conventional Hebrew based Judaism.

You yourself have stated in various times and places that the Hellenist faction wished to clear away the long standing Jewish religious requirement of circumcision, to attain to access equal treatment and respect to all persons desiring to participate in Jewish synagogue activities. A long standing sore, and point of conflict point between Jews and Gentiles for generations.
There naturally developed the defending theological "Christos" the Redeemer and Saviour of ALL men' arguments, as are so prominently present in 'Paul's' writings. This political/religious/philosophical battle DID happen. It is an observable FACT of history.
Whether you chose to term how this dividing up of, or creating of a 'new' and non-Jewish Abrahamic religion came to happen a 'conspiracy', that is up to you.
It happened.
It is a FACT of history observable by anyone of any reasonable intelligence.
And that split in the ancient religion, and between the adherents of the Law, and the lawless ones still stands and is observable in the strictly held diverse religious practices of each respective group, every weekend, worldwide.

WHEN 'Iesus' christus' arrived there was one religion of the Jews, founded on practice of 'the Laws of Moses' The Torah, being practiced by all called 'The Nation of Israel'.

AFTER 'Iesous' christus' according to 'christian' (Pauline) doctrine and teaching there are now TWO very different 'Nations of Israel';
The Jews, whom because of their 'legalisim' in being 'Jewish' in obeying The Laws they were COMMANDED to obey, are losers doomed to be tormented burned forever in everlasting hellfire,
And the 'Christians', and Jewish lawbreakers who are now the one TRUE Nation of Israel' who will look from heaven on their torment and sing for joy.
We live in a very fucked up religious world.

Sheshbazzar

[Bernard Muller]

None of your quotations is evidence that the early Christians themselves were embarrassed about the crucifixion.

I do not see why not.

They gloried in it.

Not according to the quotes I gave you. The explanation of the crucifixion as the Sacrifice for atonement of sins for the elects came later, which in turn glorified the crucifixion.

It's at the center of their whole message, to judge from Paul. You can't "get behind Paul" to a stage where the crucifixion was felt by the cult leadership as embarrassing. The shame of the crucifixion, a feature trumpeted in the above verses, is part of the construct of the message and, thus, not shameful to Paul et al. He was getting a lot of mileage from that claim.

I concluded that most of 1 Corinthians 1-4 (1:10-4:21) was a letter which got combined with 2 others (written later) to form the canonical epistle.
In it, Paul was unable to explain what was so significant about "Christ crucified", except it was an emanation of God's secret wisdom. Also he avoided to mention that Jesus was resurrected.
http://historical-jesus.info/43.html
http://historical-jesus.info/co1a.html

Can you sum up your "many pieces of evidence that Jesus' own eyewitnesses never believed J was ... resurrected", Bernard? I started looking over the info you linked from your blog, and it is in a form difficult to sift through.

That would take you not too much time, more so that the 11 blog posts are short and easily readable.
If you are really interested why don't you start by:
http://historical-jesus.info/8.html
Did Jesus' disciples believe in the Resurrection and resurrections?
There are many signs, by looking only at Mark's gospel, that NO is the right answer.
then
http://historical-jesus.info/28.html
How did "Mark" handle the known "humble" Jesus testimony conflicting with the later preaching as a divine entity?
Mark's solutions to the "problem" are rather obvious and would explain a large part of the so-called messianic secret.
then
http://historical-jesus.info/38.html
About James, the brother of Jesus
What can we learn about James through the James' epistle?
then
http://historical-jesus.info/11.html
Who were the first leaders of the Church of Jerusalem?
There is evidence in the early Christian writings which show Jesus' disciples and James couldn't have been those who lead the Church from its beginning.
then
http://historical-jesus.info/10.html
Did Paul consider James, Peter, John & Church of Jerusalem members as Christian(s)?
Despite many opportunities in his epistles, Paul never said those were "in the Lord", or "in Christ", or just "brothers". But he used often these expressions to qualify other(s) as "Christian(s)".

NOTE: I provided here only the title and the introduction/synopsis of my blog posts.

Cordially, Bernard

[outhouse]

You have chosen to ignore this information and explanation, Because it doesn't agree with YOUR favored hypothesis.

Sheshbazzar

Im not interested in bias or conspiracy theories.

Except the perpetual promotion of your own blatant and myopic bias.
What I present is a natural outcome of centuries of philosophical, theological, and political maneuvering by Hellenistic forces bend upon on ridding acceptance into the religion of the Jews, of any obligations to be circumcised, or to follow the Mosaic Laws, the mishpahat rulings, or commanded traditions of conventional Hebrew based Judaism.

You yourself have stated in various times and places that the Hellenist faction wished to clear away the long standing Jewish religious requirement of circumcision, to attain to access equal treatment and respect to all persons desiring to participate in Jewish synagogue activities. A long standing sore, and point of conflict point between Jews and Gentiles for generations.
There naturally developed the defending theological "Christos" the Redeemer and Saviour of ALL men' arguments, as are so prominently present in 'Paul's' writings. This political/religious/philosophical battle DID happen. It is an observable FACT of history.
Whether you chose to term how this dividing up of, or creating of a 'new' and non-Jewish Abrahamic religion came to happen a 'conspiracy', that is up to you.
It happened.
It is a FACT of history observable by anyone of any reasonable intelligence.
And that split in the ancient religion, and between the adherents of the Law, and the lawless ones still stands and is observable in the strictly held diverse religious practices of each respective group, every weekend, worldwide.

WHEN 'Iesus' christus' arrived there was one religion of the Jews, founded on practice of 'the Laws of Moses' The Torah, being practiced by all called 'The Nation of Israel'.

AFTER 'Iesous' christus' according to 'christian' (Pauline) doctrine and teaching there are now TWO very different 'Nations of Israel';
The Jews, whom because of their 'legalisim' in being 'Jewish' in obeying The Laws they were COMMANDED to obey, are losers doomed to be tormented burned forever in everlasting hellfire,
And the 'Christians', and Jewish lawbreakers who are now the one TRUE Nation of Israel' who will look from heaven on their torment and sing for joy.
We live in a very fucked up religious world.

Sheshbazzar

I almost agree whole hearted.

WHEN 'Iesus' christus' arrived there was one religion of the Jews, founded on practice of 'the Laws of Moses' The Torah, being practiced by all called 'The Nation of Israel'.

No. There was not one religion. That is a misunderstanding of Judaism. Judaism was broken up into many versions before the orthodox version now known.

How distinct each version was is an understatement. Having been run over so many times and currently under the Roman Sword, the cultural Judaism had been some what lost and under a constant state of redefinition. It was a free for all.

When the mythology of "Iesus" arrived, there was monotheism. Judaism was a perverted version of what once was. While there was a sharp division between Hellenistic Judaism and different sects that resembled traditional views, Hellenism had still permeated every aspect of the cultures considered Jewish by birth. Even traditionalist if you can state that, I often do, had different views on how to interpret these laws. I often think we do a great disservice to history by not qualifying each aspect of second temple Judaism, buy using just the term Judaism. Aramaic Jews, Hellenistic Jews, Pharisaic Hellenistic Jews compared to Pharisaic Zealot influenced Jews, to Essene communities, and on and on and on. Proselytes in Jerusalem, Gate Keepers, Proselytes of the Diaspora.

[ficino]

None of your quotations is evidence that the early Christians themselves were embarrassed about the crucifixion.

I do not see why not.

They gloried in it.

Not according to the quotes I gave you. The explanation of the crucifixion as the Sacrifice for atonement of sins for the elects came later, which in turn glorified the crucifixion.

?? Galatians 1:4 "the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins..." 2:19-21 "I have been crucified with Christ ... faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me... If justice is available through the law, then Christ died to no purpose..." 3:1 "... you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was displayed to view upon his cross..."

etc.

Most people take Galatians as one of the earlier genuine epistles of Paul.

I'll try to go through your links later, Bernard. So far I must confess I'm not seeing your methodology. You speak about Mark as portraying things in certain ways. You allow that he is putting his spin, even inventing [e.g. "'Mark' putting these words in the mouths of the disciples.."]. But then you speak about what the characters in his work do and say, as though Mark's portrayal of them is a kind of reporting. But to allow Mark as much authorial license as you do undermines the "just the facts, ma'am," since we have no way of distinguishing purported facts from the spin - except for ways like employing the Criteria. But that brings us back to square one.

[cienfuegos]

You keep throwing Crossan's words out there and then backing off them. I used to be a big fan of Crossan because I liked his social history analysis. In the end though, I feel like his conclusions are similar to those of National Geographic's "Face of Jesus." He has created a composite sketch of a hypothetical, plausible Jesus. In the end, his quest has failed to achieve anything beyond past attempts to uncover the historical Jesus, as in the actual person who was the inspiration for the Gospels.

.

I am still a fan, yet I disagree with many of his personal conclusions, as far as Im concerned, he puts to much weight on the text.

I lean more towards Johnathon Reed who Crosssan relies on for anthropology. Yet I disagree with some of his views on Hellenistic Judaism in Sepphoris.

You ignore that and claim a special privilege of Bible scholars to do history in a special way that entails deriving "nuggets of historical data" from hearsay evidence.

Your assuming there with special privilege. I claim different methods as required for all of this period. By all your accounts we would have no history from any part of this time period. Im sorry it doesn't work that way.

I am not assuming it. I have repeatedly referred you to the wikipedia page on historical methods, nowhere is there anything about special rules for ancient history. You referred first to the same set of rules, then to a different set of vague rules for Biblical studies (not for "all of this period"). You have not defended your assertion that there is a different methodology that applies to "all of this period." The rules you seem to be implying are rules that bypass source criticism so you don't have to be concerned about your source. My point is that you can apply those rules to work of fiction and arrive at "sound historical conclusions" that fictional events actually occurred.

For example: the massacre of the family of Jack Crabb. Let's analyze the recounting of this event. We have 2 sources, one written down, perhaps from audio recordings of Jack Crabb himself in his old age taken by a university ethnographer and published in 1964. The other is a later recounting of that story in film version. As Jack Crabb tells the story (according to later writings from the oral telling, though the audio tapes are not available), his family was traveling west in the mid-1800s when they came upon a band of Cheyenne warriors. After a brief encounter that included imbibing alcohol, the Cheyenne warriors murdered most of Jack's family and took Jack and his sister hostage. Jack was then raised by the Cheyenne tribe that murdered his family. In the later telling of the story, the maker of the film (docudrama?) version, Arthur Penn, changes the perpetrators of the massacre to a different Native American tribe (Crow, Shoshone, or something). Clearly, Penn was embarrassed by the fact that Jack was raised by the same tribe that had massacred his family, so changed the story somewhat. In the film version, the Cheyenne warriors happen to find the two children after the real murderers have moved on.

We can establish as a sound historical conclusion (but not a 100% fact!) that Jack Crabb's family was murdered by Cheyenne warriors and not some other tribe by applying the criterion of embarrassment. We also know that Jack (who is an eyewitness to his own story, obviously) gets a lot of facts right in his recounting of his life. We know there really was a General George Custer who was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn. We know there really was a Wild Bill Hickok. We know that within the context of the times, the story is extremely plausible, Cheyenne warriors did indeed from time to time attack and kill white settlers traveling across the Plains.

There are weaknesses to this conclusion. For example, there is no mention of a "Jack Crabb" in the historical record, but that is not surprising because Jack himself was a bit player in the history of the West and obscure (one might even say a "loser") and hardly noteworthy. There is actually reference to a "Little Big Man" which Jack claimed was his given Cheyenne name. We can also point out that no one argued against Jack's story between 1876 and 1964 (and there probably were oral versions before it was actually recorded by the ethnographer because Jack wasn't shy about his history, though, unfortunately he himself left behind no writings).

There you go. Prove that a) Jack Crabb's family was not massacred by Cheyenne warriors and b) Jack Crabb did not exist.

[Bernard Muller]

to ficino,

?? Galatians 1:4 "the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins..." 2:19-21 "I have been crucified with Christ ... faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me... If justice is available through the law, then Christ died to no purpose..." 3:1 "... you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was displayed to view upon his cross..."
etc.
Most people take Galatians as one of the earlier genuine epistles of Paul.

I do not think it is true. A fair amount of scholars put Galatians as coming late.
I suspect many scholars who have Galatian as an early letters are Christian apologists who want to have us believe that Paul came out of the gate with the same theology/christology that he had at the end of his apostolic times.
There is a huge amount of similarities with Romans which shows the two letters were written at about the same time.
As I explained here: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3xx.html#galdate
I firmly believed in evolution, everywhere, and we can see it also in Paul's epistles.

But then you speak about what the characters in his work do and say, as though Mark's portrayal of them is a kind of reporting. But to allow Mark as much authorial license as you do undermines the "just the facts, ma'am," since we have no way of distinguishing purported facts from the spin

Yes, "Mark" embellished and invented a lot. I had to deal with that. But I needed very little from gMark to do my reconstruction of that small earthly & human Jesus. (I used also Paul's letters indicating a very little HJ)
One thing I used is "against the grain" items, not spin.
You can learn about my methodology here: http://historical-jesus.info/author.html

Cordially, Bernard

[cienfuegos]

to ficino,

?? Galatians 1:4 "the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins..." 2:19-21 "I have been crucified with Christ ... faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me... If justice is available through the law, then Christ died to no purpose..." 3:1 "... you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was displayed to view upon his cross..."
etc.
Most people take Galatians as one of the earlier genuine epistles of Paul.

I do not think it is true. A fair amount of scholars put Galatians as coming late.
I suspect many scholars who have Galatian as an early letters are Christian apologists who want to have us believe that Paul came out of the gate with the same theology/christology that he had at the end of his apostolic times.
There is a huge amount of similarities with Romans which shows the two letters were written at about the same time.
As I explained here: http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3xx.html#galdate
I firmly believed in evolution, everywhere, and we can see it also in Paul's epistles.

But then you speak about what the characters in his work do and say, as though Mark's portrayal of them is a kind of reporting. But to allow Mark as much authorial license as you do undermines the "just the facts, ma'am," since we have no way of distinguishing purported facts from the spin

Yes, "Mark" embellished and invented a lot. I had to deal with that. But I needed very little from gMark to do my reconstruction of that small earthly & human Jesus. (I used also Paul's letters indicating a very little HJ)
One thing I used is "against the grain" items, not spin.
You can learn about my methodology here: http://historical-jesus.info/author.html

Cordially, Bernard

Your analysis should begin with source criticism. I see you are using mostly Paul, but also Mark. I support your use of Paul on the grounds that it is a first person account and we can get some idea about the nature of Paul based on his multiple writings. Unfortunately, he gives us little historical context to assess his reliability. We also do not have contemporaries who comment on Paul or who he is. We are pretty much reliant on internal analysis to assess Paul. Now when I say that, it's important to note that we still have to evaluate assertions in Paul individually.

I do not see where you establish a foundation for using Mark as a source for historical data. The writing is of unknown origin. We do not know the purpose, biases, or general reliability of the author. We don't really know the context in which this writing was created nor the audience. If we are going to apply historical methods, we have to agree that no solid historical data can be culled from the Gospel of Mark.

[ficino]

to ficino,

Most people take Galatians as one of the earlier genuine epistles of Paul.

I do not think it is true. A fair amount of scholars put Galatians as coming late.
I suspect many scholars who have Galatian as an early letters are Christian apologists who want to have us believe that Paul came out of the gate with the same theology/christology that he had at the end of his apostolic times.

Bernard, you may be more up on the literature than I. Ray Brown said that I Thess was the first epistle, written around 52. But a good number of people, according to Wikipedia, put Galatians around 50 or even 49.

Anyway, the Criteria have to do with the attempt to pull "nuggets" out of the gospels. So far, your allowances for Markan invention or fictionalization or whatever we call it seem to undermine the status of that gospel as a source for authentic info about the disciples (and Jesus), since we don't have a way of getting behind Mark's authorial portrayal.

Similar to what I said before about our not having a way of getting behind Paul's presentation of the kerygma to an earlier stage of it.

A somewhat similar problem is the quest for the historical Socrates. There are enough contemporary mentions of the man that we can be confident that he existed. But what was his philosophy? There are some affinities among what we see of Socrates in dialogue in the portrayals of Aeschines of Sphettos, Plato, Xenophon, and even Aristophanes. Among these different portraits, some common elements are his method of testing people's beliefs through dialectic, incl. techniques common to eristic and antilogic. He seemed to have talked a lot about virtue and the best life. But there are many differences among the portrayals. The result is that among people who work on Socrates, the overall slant nowadays is mostly to try to recover what was written about him and analyze those writings as writings. So we get reconstructions of Plato's Socrates, Xenophon's Socrates, and so on. Everyone I know is pretty well in agreement that the dialogues are fictionalizing portrayals more than they are reports - despite some introductory passages that present the ensuing conversation as though it's the ipsissima verba, transmitted by eyewitnesses (e.g. Xenophon, prologue of Plato's Theaetetus).

Do I think we can know nothing about Socrates? No. I'm even fine with accepting that he had two wives, Xanthippe and Myrto, of perhaps different legal status. But there's much doubt, for example, about his apology in court. One strain of evidence suggests he said little that amounted to very much. Many people wrote Apologies of Socrates. We don't have a clear way to get behind them, for all the remains are already interpretations.

Ditto Pythagoras. Almost all the sources are infected by Platonism and neo-Platonism. That was pointed out convincingly by Erich Frank almost a century ago. We can examine our sources for how they treat ideas that they call Pythagorean. The man Pythagoras remains elusive. See discussion we had on him a while ago: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=780&start=10

Scholars who work on these figures advance human knowledge. I don't think they generally employ devices that are equivalents of the Criteria of Authenticity devised by NT scholars. I still think many of those guys fall into circularity.

[outhouse]

I am not assuming it. I have repeatedly referred you to the wikipedia page on historical methods, nowhere is there anything about special rules for ancient history.

Doesn't matter, your argument looks to be from ignorance on the topic at hand. No one is saying the historical methods are not used for both.

Civil war history relies more on proof, as there is evidence that can be used to prove history.

Biblical history lacks evidence for proof, and relies on more on plausibility.


If you cannot see that, your in the wrong hobby.

Someone trained in civil war history, does not have the same skill set as a biblical scholar. Only similar ones.