Facts Regarding Jesus

[JoeyKnothead]

From here:

...However, there are facts that we know about the Historical Jesus...

For debate:

Please present verifiable facts regarding "the Historical Jesus" for examination.

[Board]

What do you mean by verifiable? No history is verifiable in the sense of the scientific method.

Where that is true, there is a fairly sound scientific method that can be applied to History to determine the probability that historical events occurred or people existed. Actually it is soon to be a new book by Richard Carrier if he can find a publisher...

Here is a link to his Blog on that topic and if you follow the links his interview is fairly long and in-depth about the focus of his book.

http://richardcarrier.blogspot.com/2011 ... rview.html

Also this is his break down on Bayes' Theorem for beginners:

http://www.richardcarrier.info/CarrierDec08.pdf

He is doing some pretty amazing work trying to bridge the gap between history and science by developing a sound historical method that is grounded in statistics.

His first book coming out focuses on the method. His second book puts the method to use and he is encouraging scholars to address any issues with both. I'm kind of excited... hope he finds a publisher...

[Goat]

From here:

...However, there are facts that we know about the Historical Jesus...

For debate:

Please present verifiable facts regarding "the Historical Jesus" for examination.

What do you mean by verifiable? No history is verifiable in the sense of the scientific method.

Where does it say 'via the scientific method'. How about sources that are external to Christian tradition that are contemporary to the life of Jesus, and can not have been taken from Christians?

[d.thomas]

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Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.




.

[cnorman18]

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Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
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That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

...prima facie evidence for a historical Jesus came from the agreement on his existence between ancient orthodox Christians, Docetists, and opponents of Christianity.

Multiple attestation: ...modern scholars believe that Mark is not the only source behind the synoptic gospels. The current predominant view within the field, the Two-Source hypothesis, postulates that the Synoptic gospels are based on at least two independent sources (Mark and "Q"), and potentially as many as four (Mark, "Q", "M", and "L").

Pauline epistles: ...The letters say that Paul knew of and had met important figures in Jesus's ministry, including the apostles Peter and John, as well as James the brother of Jesus, who is also mentioned in Josephus. In the letters, Paul on occasion alludes to and quotes the teachings of Jesus, and in 1 Corinthians 11 recounts the Last Supper.

Principle of embarrassment: ...if the gospels were entirely imaginary, certain issues might not have been included, such as the competition of the apostles for high places in the kingdom of God, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial, the failure of Jesus to work miracles in Galilee, the references to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, and his despairing cry on the cross...
an invented narrative might have presented Jesus in strict conformity with messianic expectations.

Rejection of mythological parallels: ... no serious work places Jesus outside the backdrop of 1st century Palestinian Judaism... Biblical scholarship also generally rejects the concept of homogenous dying and rising gods, the validity of which is often presupposed by advocates of the Jesus myth theory... proponents of the theory have even invented elements of pagan myths to support their assertion of parallelism between the life of Jesus and the lives of pagan mythological characters. For example... the purported equivalence of Jesus' virgin birth with Mithras' origin fails because Mithras emerged fully grown, partially clothed, and armed from a rock... the very idea that early Christians would consciously incorporate pagan myths into their religion is "intrinsically most improbable," as evidenced by the strenuous opposition that Paul encountered from other Christians for even his minor concessions to Gentile believers.

These are all serious scholarly objections to the "Jesus myth" theory that are not founded in dogmatism; apparently there are things that have to be explained and excuses that do have to be made for a mythical Jesus. Note that I do not use the term Christ; that is not the same thing or the same person.

Besides, the alternative, as I've already said, is a Bible conspiracy theory, which is a good deal less credible than the idea that there was an ordinary man about whom tales were told and legends grew and were circulated. I really don't see the problem.

I'm a Jew. I have no investment at all in the idea that the historical Jesus was the Son of God, God Incarnate, the Messiah, the Christ, or anything but an ordinary man. I can't help but wonder why people bristle at such a simple, sensible, and credible idea that does not support the truth of the doctrines or beliefs of Christianity in any way, any more than the fact that, say, the existence of Lenin supports the truth of the doctrines or beliefs of Communism or the existence of Muhammad supports the truth of the doctrines or beliefs of Islam. So what if there was a real person that these Jesus stories grew up around? Big deal. It just isn't necessary to claim that there was no such person in any way, shape or form, no way, no how, not ever, nononono, NO, in order to oppose Christianity. That, as I've said earlier, at least appears to have more of the odor of ideological agenda about it than of scholarship or an interest in what is historically reasonable and credible, not to mention in finding the simplest solution.

[Goat]

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Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
.

That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

Just to play devils advocate, let's look at the name Jesus. The Hebrew for that is Yashua, which is another name for Joshua, and literally means 'god is our salvation'.

From a mythological building perspective, the use of "God is our salvation" is a perfect name for the describing someone who 'Brings salvation', just like "Adam" for mankind, or 'Job' for mankind. Of course, that was a very common name during that time period too. The name could be a coincidence, or it COULD have been chosen because it fit the roll that was being promoted

With the available information, we can not say for sure one way or another. It is a highly suspect coincidence never the less.

[cnorman18]

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Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
.

That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

Just to play devils advocate, let's look at the name Jesus. The Hebrew for that is Yashua, which is another name for Joshua, and literally means 'god is our salvation'.

From a mythological building perspective, the use of "God is our salvation" is a perfect name for the describing someone who 'Brings salvation', just like "Adam" for mankind, or 'Job' for mankind. Of course, that was a very common name during that time period too. The name could be a coincidence, or it COULD have been chosen because it fit the roll that was being promoted

With the available information, we can not say for sure one way or another. It is a highly suspect coincidence never the less.

I think that the name might actually be filed under "embarrassments" -- if the story was concocted out of whole cloth, he would have been named "Emmanuel," no?

[Goat]

.
Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
.

That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

Just to play devils advocate, let's look at the name Jesus. The Hebrew for that is Yashua, which is another name for Joshua, and literally means 'god is our salvation'.

From a mythological building perspective, the use of "God is our salvation" is a perfect name for the describing someone who 'Brings salvation', just like "Adam" for mankind, or 'Job' for mankind. Of course, that was a very common name during that time period too. The name could be a coincidence, or it COULD have been chosen because it fit the roll that was being promoted

With the available information, we can not say for sure one way or another. It is a highly suspect coincidence never the less.

I think that the name might actually be filed under "embarrassments" -- if the story was concocted out of whole cloth, he would have been named "Emmanuel," no?

No, because the searching for 'prophecies' in the Jewish scripture was a process, and the use of Isaiah to support 'prophecy for Jesus' was decades after the use of the name Jesus by Paul

[d.thomas]

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The gospel story appears to be a mythology written for theological and political purposes. The editing and amendments by authors of Matthew and Luke that copied and embellished upon Mark bear this out.



The Jesus myth theory does not necessarily suggest there was no Jesus at all;

Events or sayings associated with the figure of Jesus in the New Testament may have been drawn from one or more individuals who actually existed, but that none of them were in any sense the founder of Christianity. Jesus myth theory wiki


There may very well have been a Jesus of sorts from Galilee, but as Wells suggests, he is not to be confused with the Christ of the early epistles.


My present standpoint is: this complex is not all post-Pauline (Q in its earliest form may well be as early as ca. AD. 40), and it is not all mythical. The essential point, as I see it, is that what is authentic in this material refers to a personage who is not to be identified with the dying and rising Christ of the early epistles." G. A. Wells, wiki





The "Bible Conspiracy theories" appear to be bunk, not worth commenting on.

That the Jesus myth theory is considered by those that oppose Christianity is also not worth commenting on.

[cnorman18]

.
Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
.

That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

Just to play devils advocate, let's look at the name Jesus. The Hebrew for that is Yashua, which is another name for Joshua, and literally means 'god is our salvation'.

From a mythological building perspective, the use of "God is our salvation" is a perfect name for the describing someone who 'Brings salvation', just like "Adam" for mankind, or 'Job' for mankind. Of course, that was a very common name during that time period too. The name could be a coincidence, or it COULD have been chosen because it fit the roll that was being promoted

With the available information, we can not say for sure one way or another. It is a highly suspect coincidence never the less.

I think that the name might actually be filed under "embarrassments" -- if the story was concocted out of whole cloth, he would have been named "Emmanuel," no?

No, because the searching for 'prophecies' in the Jewish scripture was a process, and the use of Isaiah to support 'prophecy for Jesus' was decades after the use of the name Jesus by Paul

Ah, I see. Point taken, though the "Messiah" theme was obvious the focus of any putative fiction, even before Paul -- unless you think Paul had totally dumped the Messiah idea and knowingly struck out on his own with an unrelated "Christ" idea.

Whatever. "Devil's advocate" gamesmanship aside, it still seems to me that Occam's razor pretty much leaves us with a real Jesus, never mind the supernatural encrustations of folklore that grew up around him. If you examine Jesus as a literary creation, it looks even more unlikely.

Example: the incident of the "woman taken in adultery" tells of Jesus writing with his finger in the dust, but never explains that action in any way. That, in a fictional narrative, is called "verisimilitude"; the giving of a realistic detail that has no bearing on the story, a totally unrelated image that is place there just to simulate realism. If the story were fictional, that would be remarkable, since that technique wouldn't be invented in literature for another 15 centuries or thereabouts.

His habitual use of the phrase, "Omayn, omayn," translated in the KJV as "Verily, verily," is another realistic idiosyncrasy that is a few centuries ahead of its time in a fictional character. Many of his images and themes -- the Kingdom of God, referring to himself as the "Son of Man" -- a remarkably inexact and unclear phrase in what is supposed to be a polemic work of fiction -- were original, even if his ethical teachings were not (and there are discontinuities there too, such as his oddly strict teachings on divorce -- more restrictive than even the sternest rabbis of his day). His remarkably consistent use of parables and storytelling in the way that he did, and his original turn of mind and the aptness of his phrases -- "Render unto Caesar" -- are virtually without precedent.

Too, there is the odd fact that he very, very rarely forthrightly and unequivocally declares himself to be divine, the literal Son of God, the Christ, or anything else of the kind; he almost always prefers to be coy and allusive and indirect. That, too, argues pretty strongly that those claims were put in his mouth later; if the story were fabricated, why weren't they put in his mouth from the get-go? Best and simplest explanation; even though the Church found those sayings problematic and difficult to rationalize and explain (as it does to this day), they were included because this actual person actually said them.

All this indicates pretty strongly that a real person was behind these tales, and not a cardboard stick figure, which is what fictional characters generally looked like in those days. It's not certain, no; but the level of literary creativity if this character were fabricated, and the strange inconsistencies and conflicts and oddities of the Gospel accounts, are pretty hard to reconcile with the idea of a made-up fable to promote a Christ-figure that's ambiguously presented in the Gospels themselves.

[Goat]

.
Nothing has to be explained for a mythical Christ. No excuses have to be made. No one wrote about him when he supposedly lived which is consistent with a non entity and why no facts are known. A mythology is all we have.
.

That's a huge oversimplification of the "Jesus myth" theory. Here are a few counterarguments, from the site linked earlier on that theory:

Just to play devils advocate, let's look at the name Jesus. The Hebrew for that is Yashua, which is another name for Joshua, and literally means 'god is our salvation'.

From a mythological building perspective, the use of "God is our salvation" is a perfect name for the describing someone who 'Brings salvation', just like "Adam" for mankind, or 'Job' for mankind. Of course, that was a very common name during that time period too. The name could be a coincidence, or it COULD have been chosen because it fit the roll that was being promoted

With the available information, we can not say for sure one way or another. It is a highly suspect coincidence never the less.

I think that the name might actually be filed under "embarrassments" -- if the story was concocted out of whole cloth, he would have been named "Emmanuel," no?

No, because the searching for 'prophecies' in the Jewish scripture was a process, and the use of Isaiah to support 'prophecy for Jesus' was decades after the use of the name Jesus by Paul

Ah, I see. Point taken, though the "Messiah" theme was obvious the focus of any putative fiction, even before Paul -- unless you think Paul had totally dumped the Messiah idea and knowingly struck out on his own with an unrelated "Christ" idea.

Whatever. "Devil's advocate" gamesmanship aside, it still seems to me that Occam's razor pretty much leaves us with a real Jesus, never mind the supernatural encrustations of folklore that grew up around him. If you examine Jesus as a literary creation, it looks even more unlikely.

Example: the incident of the "woman taken in adultery" tells of Jesus writing with his finger in the dust, but never explains that action in any way. That, in a fictional narrative, is called "verisimilitude"; the giving of a realistic detail that has no bearing on the story, a totally unrelated image that is place there just to simulate realism. If the story were fictional, that would be remarkable, since that technique wouldn't be invented in literature for another 15 centuries or thereabouts.

His habitual use of the phrase, "Omayn, omayn," translated in the KJV as "Verily, verily," is another realistic idiosyncrasy that is a few centuries ahead of its time in a fictional character. Many of his images and themes -- the Kingdom of God, referring to himself as the "Son of Man" -- a remarkably inexact and unclear phrase in what is supposed to be a polemic work of fiction -- were original, even if his ethical teachings were not (and there are discontinuities there too, such as his oddly strict teachings on divorce -- more restrictive than even the sternest rabbis of his day). His remarkably consistent use of parables and storytelling in the way that he did, and his original turn of mind and the aptness of his phrases -- "Render unto Caesar" -- are virtually without precedent.

Too, there is the odd fact that he very, very rarely forthrightly and unequivocally declares himself to be divine, the literal Son of God, the Christ, or anything else of the kind; he almost always prefers to be coy and allusive and indirect. That, too, argues pretty strongly that those claims were put in his mouth later; if the story were fabricated, why weren't they put in his mouth from the get-go? Best and simplest explanation; even though the Church found those sayings problematic and difficult to rationalize and explain (as it does to this day), they were included because this actual person actually said them.

All this indicates pretty strongly that a real person was behind these tales, and not a cardboard stick figure, which is what fictional characters generally looked like in those days. It's not certain, no; but the level of literary creativity if this character were fabricated, and the strange inconsistencies and conflicts and oddities of the Gospel accounts, are pretty hard to reconcile with the idea of a made-up fable to promote a Christ-figure that's ambiguously presented in the Gospels themselves.

It could be.. but, well, I am not convinced one way or another. It could be a conglomeration of preachers, it could be the Samaritan messiah that was executed in an uprising by Pilate (unnamed_ in the records) .. who knows.

Too much forgeries and disrupting of the evidence has happened to arrive at a conclusion I would feel comfortable with.