Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Ulan wrote: Yes, but that's mostly guesswork. Carrier employs math to give the guesswork the air of objectivity. But even when you assume historicity, it starts with assumptions like "the text is genuine" or "the text contains many interpolations". Of course, we tend to think our own assumptions are "reasonable". Are they?

Carrier does not matter because his attempt failed to gain any traction at all.

The only hypothesis that does not require any mental hurdles for Pauline text, gospels, Josephus, and Tertullian. Is that a Galilean was crucified at Passover that generated theology and mythology in the Diaspora due to his martyrdom in Hellenistic Judaism that was forced to divorce Judaism when the temple fell. Due to a perceived selfless sacrifice.

That is a hypothesis that cuts to the chase, is simple, and the most plausible, and requires no mental hurdles, and it is short and sweet.

AchyraS went in a cosmological route and failed. Doherty through lack of education, also went that route but refined it albeit out of context to what Pauline text actually states while completely ignoring gospel text hand waiving it away.

What it is going to take is for mythicist to address the dates of text as the majority has found, IE Pauline text in the mid 50's as coming from Pauls community, and gospel text from 70 to 120 ish. Marcion as a gnostic heretic, and John the Baptist as a Aramaic Jewish teacher, and Christianity as evolving DIRECTLY from Judaism TO STAY IN CONTEXT with credibility.

The above have a great deal of plausible historicity to the point of certainties. So mythicst need to build from a foundation if they want to have credibility in their hypothesis.


It is no easy task.


That is why I stated current gnostics on the topic are safe, not giving a crappy hypothesis and questioning the current historicity is more credible, then a terrible conclusion out of context like all the bad ones that tried so far.

Ulan wrote:But even when you assume historicity

Historicity is not assumed here. That is insulting a hundred years of credible study by brilliant individuals educated as much as anyone could be educated.


Its one thing to try and tear down others work. It is altogether different to stand behind yours with credibility.

Mythicist need credibility. If they want to promote their ideas, they need to up their game in credibility if they want to be taken seriously.

Instead of taking a bite they cannot explain like mythicism, taking an agnostic bite, can be done with credibility, and might in time make it easier for the knowledgeable to accept new hypothesis that require mental hurdles that have been refuted for over a hundred years.

outhouse wrote:

Ulan wrote: Yes, but that's mostly guesswork. Carrier employs math to give the guesswork the air of objectivity. But even when you assume historicity, it starts with assumptions like "the text is genuine" or "the text contains many interpolations". Of course, we tend to think our own assumptions are "reasonable". Are they?

Carrier does not matter because his attempt failed to gain any traction at all.

It doesn't matter what you think of Carrier's hypothesis, that's not the topic here. It's about how you build assumptions. As such, your whole answer did not address what I said. Your whole argumentation is based on a few, very scant statements in Paul's letters and the belief that gMark is basically using actual historical source material. You have to believe this to draw the conclusions you draw. In the end, that's an act of faith, not in the religious sense, but faith in the authenticity of everything in Paul's letters and faith that gMark is not an allegory. That was the point I made.

outhouse wrote:

Ulan wrote:But even when you assume historicity...

Historicity is not assumed here. That is insulting a hundred years of credible study by brilliant individuals educated as much as anyone could be educated.

The process of divorcing yourself from inherited preconceptions usually takes generations of scholars. That includes "brilliant individuals", and there's nothing insulting about this. It's only all too human.

In the end, our impression that the NT texts draw a "whole" picture depends on very few, isolated hints. Of which, by the way, scholars like Trobisch assume that the betray the work of a single editor of the first edition of the NT. His argumentation in this regard is quite solid. However, this necessarily devalues the idea that we have an originally clear picture in front of us.

Ulan wrote:[
In the end, our impression that the NT texts draw a "whole" picture .

Scholars do not say this, I do not.

There is no whole picture.

the belief that gMark is basically using actual historical source material.

Pseudo history can have "historical source material"


We know it does, Temple, Caiaphas, Pilate, and the divorce of cultural Judaism, are facts.


all the books together combined only offer a small paragraph of historicity

no mythicst can offer

outhouse wrote: "The only hypothesis that does not require any mental hurdles ... is that a Galilean was crucified at Passover ..."

Yes, you are right John - it is only a hypothesis.

Ulan wrote: In the end, our impression that the NT texts draw a "whole" picture depends on very few, isolated hints. Of which, by the way, scholars like Trobisch assume that they betray the work of a single editor of the first edition of the NT. His argumentation in this regard is quite solid. However, this necessarily devalues the idea that we have an originally clear picture in front of us.

Constantine pressed Eusebius to come up with 50 bibles/canons, yet we don't know what the content of them was.

The standard thought is that Vaticanus (B) and Sinaiticus (S or Aleph) may be serviving examplars.

outhouse wrote:

Ulan wrote:In the end, our impression that the NT texts draw a "whole" picture .

Scholars do not say this, I do not. There is no whole picture.

And yet, you draw it all the time.

outhouse wrote:

the belief that gMark is basically using actual historical source material.

Pseudo history can have "historical source material". We know it does, Temple, Caiaphas, Pilate, and the divorce of cultural Judaism, are facts.

I referred to incidents, not figures or places that, as you point out, are often part of even novels. It's the old chestnut that, if you remove the supernatural events and some of the personal declarations, the rest is history.

outhouse wrote:all the books together combined only offer a small paragraph of historicity
no mythicst can offer

Which is kind of a circular reasoning. As you declare parts of the text "history", the text contains "historicity". If you declare the same part "myth", the text does not contain "historicity". It's kind of a truism.

Edit: It's funny how you bring me to defend mythicism here. I'm also leaning towards historicity, but rather because it's an easier assumption if you take the texts like they are today than because I find the reasoning for it convincing.

Ulan wrote:

timhendrix wrote:I think coming down on Ehrman so hard for saying "a couple" is pretty rough. Consensus is very often brought up in other controversial academical subjects (human-caused global warming and evolution) and on these subjects the consensus is far less complete than for the historical Jesus.

While I agree about the tone towards Ehrman, evolution is not a good example, as there the consensus is pretty much 100%. The controversy over evolution is limited to people outside of the field. In my experience, most people who are against the theory are unable to give a proper definition and/or have problems with specific models based on the theory, which doesn't touch the theory itself at all.

While you may make a similar statement for NT studies,,even though thee are at least some dissenters in the field, any counter arguments with regard to evolution are easily dismissed due to hard evidence, while humanities necessarily rely much more on judgment calls.

Hi, sorry for not replying. To take human-caused global warming, I think the consensus is polled at around 90-97% depending on how the question is phrased. With regards to evolution, we should also count "agnostics" because Richard Carrier include people who are self-proclaimed agnostics (Hector Avelos and Robert Price) on historicity. We can discuss what counts as reasonable qualifications in either field, but there are several people with a relevant PhD degree and at least an agnostic attitude towards evolution.

I agree with your last point (that new testament studies is much more speculative than evolution) and from my perspective I can't see why mysticism should not be taken more seriously. But my point is that if someone said that only "a couple" of scholars didn't accept evolution or that the earth was warming up that would be less correct than Ehrman is and I don't think it would be fair to say that such a person was a liar. Like, "you liar, we are not a couple, we are a few!". Please don't mistake this as an argumentum ad populum.