At What Point Does 'Based on a Historical Character' Become Unhistorical?

[mlinssen]

I don't get why unhistorical or fiction isn't one of the possible starting points.

Because Paul met Jesus' brother James, and Josephus and the Gospel of Mark also refer to Jesus having a brother called James.

Yes, I know you personally might not believe that, but if those are the commonly accepted positions (which they are), then unhistorical or fiction are not possible starting points.

What about Thomas not saying that Jacob the Righteous is good brother?
Does that count as evidence as well, or do you conveniently ignore it?

[Paul the Uncertain]

I don't get why unhistorical or fiction isn't one of the possible starting points.

Because Paul met Jesus' brother James, and Josephus and the Gospel of Mark also refer to Jesus having a brother called James.

Yes, I know you personally might not believe that, but if those are the commonly accepted positions (which they are), then unhistorical or fiction are not possible starting points.

In fairness, I think you underestimate the force behind SA's question. That some position is commonly accepted is not much of a reason for anybody to avoid asking why some alternative isn't possible.

I don't think we need to rehearse the interpretive difficulties posed by what Paul wrote about his encounter with that James (brother of the Lord not Jesus's brother, although that is one possible interpretation), nor the well-evidenced mining of Paul's letters by Mark for story and character prompts. Concerns about the integrity of Josephus's received text are similarly well-known.

I agree that consensuses which form in light of abundant clear evidence ahould receive considerable weight. That Mark is heavily dependent on Paul would be an example. What Paul actually meant by the epithet he applied to James would be an example of a consensus that has formed despite an absence of quantity or clarity in the evidence. Caution about uncritically accepting that consensus is well advised, IMO.

That caution, however, should not be misconstrued as criticism of scholars for trying to make the most of the evidence which they actually possess. That, rather than avoiding well-posed questions, is the dominant prescription in uncertain reasoning scholarship.

[GakuseiDon]

In fairness, I think you underestimate the force behind SA's question. That some position is commonly accepted is not much of a reason for anybody to avoid asking why some alternative isn't possible.

Sure. I'm fully on-board with exploring alternatives. I do understand SA's point, and I agree with him when he writes in his OP:

"So in Jesus's case maybe Mark or Peter or whomever heard or saw a prototype for Jesus. Maybe he was crucified. Maybe he wasn't. But this smug certainty that scholars have that Jesus was a 'historical person' falls somewhere between the gospel itself being an eyewitness account of 'Jesus' to outright fiction. It's within that range of possibilities rather than - as 'serious scholars' would have it the range starts from the gospel as 'verbatim history' to 'based on a historical character' like the singer in the Godfather."

How one thinks about the Gospels, though, doesn't affect the starting position, given what is generally accepted about Paul and the Gospel of Mark. Of course, one can -- and should -- question bedrock assumptions, including the consensus about Paul. But my point is that a possible starting point by scholars cannot be (as SA puts it in the OP) "unhistorical or fiction" until the consensus about Paul and James is addressed. THAT's the starting point for scholars AFAICS.

[Paul the Uncertain]

@Don

But my point is that a possible starting point by scholars cannot be (as SA puts it in the OP) "unhistorical or fiction" until the consensus about Paul and James is addressed. THAT's the starting point for scholars AFAICS.

Maybe we agree somewhat but words are getting in the way.

What I got from the OP was that SA thinks there is a spectrum of possible relationships between Jesus and the gospels (say gMark for specificity). something like:

Eyewitness.........Based on......Outright fiction
|E|.....................|B|..................|F|

with recognition that between B and F there are many ways for a character to be based upon a real person, and many possible degrees of dependence.

If I have correctly understood SA's teaching, then that full spectrum would be a natural "starting point," since it is simply a ground fact about how characters who appear in literary works in general might be influenced by specific real people in general. The example "Godfather singer character & Frank Sinatra" would fall somewhere between points B and F. Lincoln in Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter would be very close to point B.

Anything contributed by scholars would occur downstream of laying out the spectrum. Even granting "summary judgment" (accepting arguendo that Jesus was a real person, Paul wrote about meeting his brother, and Josephus wrote about that same brother being tried in 62 CE), that would only compel Jesus & gMark's relationship to fall somewhere strictly to the left of point F, not exclusively somewhere between B and E, but anywhere except point F.

So, SA may sensibly inquire, what happened to the entire stretch between B and F; why only between B and E?

Anyway, that's how I understood him, and what I think the force behind his question would be, all the more urgent when summary judgment isn't granted.

[GakuseiDon]

@Don

But my point is that a possible starting point by scholars cannot be (as SA puts it in the OP) "unhistorical or fiction" until the consensus about Paul and James is addressed. THAT's the starting point for scholars AFAICS.

Maybe we agree somewhat but words are getting in the way.

Perhaps we are examining different points brought up in the OP.

What I got from the OP was that SA thinks there is a spectrum of possible relationships between Jesus and the gospels (say gMark for specificity). something like:
... <snipped>...
Anything contributed by scholars would occur downstream of laying out the spectrum. Even granting "summary judgment" (accepting arguendo that Jesus was a real person, Paul wrote about meeting his brother, and Josephus wrote about that same brother being tried in 62 CE), that would only compel Jesus & gMark's relationship to fall somewhere strictly to the left of point F, not exclusively somewhere between B and E, but anywhere except point F.

So, SA may sensibly inquire, what happened to the entire stretch between B and F; why only between B and E?

Yes, that's pretty much how I see SA's argument as well. But as you noted, "F" itself is off the table, given the consensus of modern scholarship. "Fiction/unhistorical" cannot be the starting point (according to that consensus), which was my criticism of the OP. That does leave a position from "E" to anywhere a little left of "F", which is how I see the state of modern scholarship. But not "F" itself.

[Paul the Uncertain]

@Don

OK, you and I have probably gone as far as we can without SA's help. Maybe he will pop in again and say whether he's willing to grant summary judgment (take "totally fictional" off his table).

Even if he does, though, he'd have lots of room between B and F to place his "frontier of the unhistorical." Off-hand, it is not obvious that including or excluding the rightmost extreme (F, entirely fictional) would change the location of the leftmost boundary of the "unhistorical" region.

Until then, regards.

[lclapshaw]

Lest we forget gentlemen, we have no way of knowing if IC in Paul and Mark is the same as the Iesous in Josephus, or even if IC=Iesous at all.

"Brother of the lord" can mean anything. It's simply too vague to be useful and until it can be shown that IC=Iesous in Paul and Mark we are wasting our time trying to use Paul to establish anything.

Simple as that really.

[Ken Olson]

Lest we forget gentlemen, we have no way of knowing if IC in Paul and Mark is the same as the Iesous in Josephus, or even if IC=Iesous at all.

I do not think the case for knowing what the nomen sacrum IC (or IY or IN) stood for in Mark is quite so hopeless as that. We know that the nomen sacrum IC was declined like the name Jesus, as Ben Smith posted about a year ago:

viewtopic.php?p=107984#p107984

We also know from the manuscript of Justin Marytyr's Dialogue with Trypho that Justin knew (or thought) the Christian IC had the same name as the the OT figure Joshua son of Nun, as I argued in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=133068#p133068

It occurs to me that Mark 6.3 might also have some bearing on the issue:

Mark 6.3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

So IC's mother is named Mary and he has brothers named James (Jacob), Joses (Joseph), Judas (Judah), and Simon (Simon or Shimon).

In Tal Ilan's study of Jewish names from literary and inscriptional evidence, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, Part 1 Palestine 330 BCE -200CE (2002), Mary (Miriam) is, by far, the most common name for Jewish women in Palestine, while the names of Jesus' brothers are all among the top 11 most common male names.

Tal Ilan - Table VII - Most Popular Male Names .png (27.57 KiB) Viewed 1594 times

It seems unlikely to me that the author of Mark conceived of all the members of IC's family as having very common Jewish names, while IC himself did not, and that the name Joshua (Jesus), which is the 6th most common name on the list is coincidentally declined like IC.

Is there a case for Iota-Sigma overline meaning something else that's anywhere near that strong?

Best,

Ken

[Secret Alias]

All or most of these arguments assume the immaculate preservation of Scripture. This coming from someone whose one accomplishment is arguing for the TF was an example of the corruption of ancient writings.

In antiquity it was the position of likely a large portion of Christianity (and informed portion of pagans like Celsus) in the late second century was that all four Catholic gospels were falsified.

The most common citation from the AUTHENTIC gospel material to prove Jesus was supernatural was his being mocked with the words "Your mother and brothers are outside." The passage was clearly written to say or make explicit that Jesus's only "brothers" were Christians. The other references then to Jesus actually having a mother and brothers were added as corruptions.

If Jesus was a historical individual then giving him a common identity makes sense. If not it's like arguing space aliens in 1950 - 70s science fiction were named Billy, Bobby and Joey.

[lclapshaw]

Lest we forget gentlemen, we have no way of knowing if IC in Paul and Mark is the same as the Iesous in Josephus, or even if IC=Iesous at all.

I do not think the case for knowing what the nomen sacrum IC (or IY or IN) stood for in Mark is quite so hopeless as that. We know that the nomen sacrum IC was declined like the name Jesus, as Ben Smith posted about a year ago:

viewtopic.php?p=107984#p107984

We also know from the manuscript of Justin Marytyr's Dialogue with Trypho that Justin knew (or thought) the Christian IC had the same name as the the OT figure Joshua son of Nun, as I argued in this thread:

viewtopic.php?p=133068#p133068

It occurs to me that Mark 6.3 might also have some bearing on the issue:

Mark 6.3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him.

So IC's mother is named Mary and he has brothers named James (Jacob), Joses (Joseph), Judas (Judah), and Simon (Simon or Shimon).

In Tal Ilan's study of Jewish names from literary and inscriptional evidence, Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, Part 1 Palestine 330 BCE -200CE (2002), Mary (Miriam) is, by far, the most common name for Jewish women in Palestine, while the names of Jesus' brothers are all among the top 11 most common male names.

Tal Ilan - Table VII - Most Popular Male Names .png

It seems unlikely to me that the author of Mark conceived of all the members of IC's family as having very common Jewish names, while IC himself did not, and that the name Joshua (Jesus), which is the 6th most common name on the list is coincidentally declined like IC.

Is there a case for Iota-Sigma overline meaning something else that's anywhere near that strong?

Best,

Ken

Hey Ken, I want to make clear that I am not necessarily arguing against IC=Iesous in Mark's Gospel, it very might well be. All that I am saying is that we cannot accept that as a given as only the nomina sacra is being used. That's all.

As you point out, Justin thought IC=Iesous, and it might well be, but, we can't know that as only the NS is being used and as historical researchers we can't just go off of hearsay, no mater how much we want that result. And even if (big if) Mark and Justin thought IC should be Iesous we still have no idea what Paul thought the noun was. So until we find some letters of Paul with the noun in the clear we can only guess what IC might be.

If we want to be honest with ourselves that is.

Lane