Jesus and the Early Church

[liamconnor]

This OP has a slightly different bent than my previous (historical evidence); but in truth, what follows was what I always intended for the other. I am guilty of falsely advertising that thread by the title. You will see the title of this thread is posed as a question, and the term "Resurrection" does not occur.

My proposal is that, applying basic historical methodology (which is a fancy term for common sense) to the relevant texts (canonical and non) we can gleam quite a bit about Jesus and the movement which followed his death.

NOte that I am not interested at all in defending the resurrection here; but I do think we need to be responsible in assessing the data. Even if you think ANY explanation is better than a MIRACULOUS one, still, surely you think some natural explanations are better than others, and that some are just plain silly?! It is my hope that the majority of members here have the intellectual honesty (and curiosity!) to weed out the more ridiculous ones.

(I should add, I have met only one member on this forum who proves the exception. He said, quite explicitly, that he did not care whether the explanation was good or bad, so long as there was even one; that was some time ago. If you fall into this class, then we are immediately at an impasse).

I quote, as a guiding principle for history, E.P. Sanders (an agnostic, and one of my favorite, if not my favorite, historians of the period) "One should begin with what is relatively secure and work out to more uncertain points."

I give what amounts to a consensus among scholars by quoting the eminent skeptic Bart Ehrman; I can give other names upon request. I then provide what theories these positions exclude.

One of the most certain facts of history is that Jesus was crucified on orders of the Roman prefect of Judea, Pontius Pilate.

This means that, according to Ehrman and others, arguments against the historicity of Jesus are off the table.

I dont doubt at all that some disciples claimed (to have seen the risen Jesus). We dont have any of their written testimony, but Paul, writing about 25 years later, indicates that this is what they claimed, and I dont think he is making it up. And he knew at least a couple of them, whom he met just three years after the event (i.e. the crucifixion)

So then, according to Ehrman, Paul is 1) a historical person, 2) is not fabricating the entire list in 1 Cor. 15; perhaps he was tricked by some, but he was honest.

You see that Ehrman grants that Paul had visited the Jerusalem church, and met with at least Peter. I think we can infer with a very high degree of probability that something like that list in 1 Cor. 15 therefore goes back to 36 AD. It is highly doubtful that when Paul visited Peter, the two played craps. The term Paul uses in Galatians 1:18 ("Then, three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days" NAS) is pronounced historeo, from which is derived our term "History". It has the connotation of "inquire, investigate, search".

There is no doubt that Paul believed that he saw Jesus real but glorified body raised from the dead.

This means that Paul was not a fraud. Delusional, perhaps, but not a liar. It should also be noticed that Paul believed he saw Jesus' "glorified" body. Some on this forum talk of the resurrection as if it were mere revivification. This is not true. What the disciples preached was that what all Jews (well, the majority) believed their god would do at the end of times, he did for Jesus in the middle. The Jewish resurrection was into a new mode of bodily life.

I give a list of historians who concede an empty tomb, but do not believe in the resurrection: Dale Allison, Bostock, Carnely, Ehrman, Fisher Grant and Vermes. I am familiar with Vermes, Ehrman and Allison. The three others I have not read, but have found them cited in scholarly works.


So then, two questions:

Which of these conclusions do you agree/disagree with and why?

What else do you think we can infer from the data (and please back it up)?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 71 by Kapyong]

make an argument; not suggestions.

I have no idea what irony you find in the name. I don't even know if that is true. But what does it matter. Numerous names had meanings; and "discipleship" was not a "Jesus" thing.

What boggles my mind is the lack of historical imagination that a comment like yours betrays. It is like you don't even care about what happened.

This is what you seem to be saying:

1) We know of no Arimethea, ergo, there was no Armithea (cause we know everything) and so obviously no Joseph of Arimethea
2) Clearly someone made it up. That is, somebody who himself had NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A TOWN, DECIDED TO MAKE UP A TOWN, RATHER THAN LEND CREDIBILITY TO HIS STORY BY REFERENCING A REAL TOWN which others would recognize.
3) Everyone who read this gospel; and better yet, heard the oral historical report, never, NEVER said, "wait...where the hell is Arimethea?"

Please just think about it. The ancients were not idiots. They were human. These suggestions are insulting to them. If you want to do good history, it is not enough to mock--you have to follow through. Don't just say x. Say, if x, then................and that is when your brain actually starts to do history.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 62 by Tired of the Nonsense]


I think we would both agree that things don't get written down immediately. If I witness a murder, I do not, as I am seeing it, ask for a pen. I will see it. Afterwards, I will talk about it. Maybe a day or two later, I will email a friend about it. So there is always SOME lapse between event and written report, even in this day and age when written communication is easy. Correct?

Now according to you, in the ancient world, this lapse has to be very, very small, if we are to consider the resulting written form valid.

For instance. 1 Cor. 15 is said by scholars to be written 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. That is a 20 year gap between event and written record. Of course, we can add that on the "oral" level, Paul is reporting things that have been talked about prior. Bart Ehrman himself grants that Paul had visited the Jerusalem church and spoken with a least a couple (certainly Peter) disciples only three years after the event. Thus on the oral level, we have a three year gap. But for you, the three year gap doesn't count for nothing. Things aren't "real" until they are written. Even in the ancient world.


So then, tell me what gap you permit between event and WRITTEN record for the latter to be acknowledged as data for analysis. Then you and I will go through Plutarch, Lucian, Seutonius, etc. and one by one poop on every modern historian of ancient Graeco-Roman antiquity...

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 69 by rikuoamero]

Why would anyone have investigated it? This isn't the same world as today, skepticism wasn't treated the same back then. Even the Gospels make mention of barely a few hundred followers of Jesus in the 30s-40s AD. It's a tiny group (initially). So why would anyone alive in the 30s-40s AD even bother investigating this group of people who say their hero rose from the dead?

So you are arguing that the disciples breached the SAbbath and were executed?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 83 by liamconnor]

What does the question you ask in post 83 have to do with the quote you have from me there? I talk about the unlikelihood of a small religious cult of barely a few hundred people being investigated 2,000 years ago, and somehow you think that has any bearing on Jesus's disciples violating the Sabbath and being executed?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 84 by rikuoamero]

You gave an irrelevant analogy about people being executed without leaving a paper trail; I asked a slightly less irrelevant question.

You also assume that the ancients were gullible idiots, ready believe anything anyone would tell them with zero evidence. This is ridiculous. It is difficult debating someone who betrays zero familiarity with the ancient world.

(and, as I recall, you set the tone).

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 79 by liamconnor]

Did "novel" religious movements have the same kind of attraction they do today, or were they regarded as suspect?

Did rejecting the civic gods and embracing a novel religious movement have zero effects on their social life? slight effects? big effects? Was it just like exchanging one sock for another?

Not being an expert on cults, I will answer with what I know. First off, I want to ask...what do you mean 'same kind of attraction'? What metrics are we using? Attraction for whom and by whom? Regarded as suspect by whom?
I am of course aware of some high profile cult cases in the 20th century. Heaven's Gate, Branch Davidians, etc. These could be considered 'novel' i.e. new in one sense, and not novel in another (e.g. Branch Davidians believed David Koresh to be the final prophet, which is not a new type of belief)

As for effects on social life...we do know that cults tend to be exclusive, as in they teach members to reject those on the outside, to think of those on the outside as being 'other' as being unenlightened etc.

Now to get back to my questions - why is it you asked those questions, as if the thought of people growing up in Judaism being unsatisfied with Judaism and hence being attracted to this new preacher by the name of Jesus is somehow preposterous? Why state that 'religious innovations were looked down upon' when Rome was actually quite liberal, quite welcoming of other religions e.g. cults of Isis were imported into Rome.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 82 by liamconnor]

I think we would both agree that things don't get written down immediately. If I witness a murder, I do not, as I am seeing it, ask for a pen. I will see it. Afterwards, I will talk about it. Maybe a day or two later, I will email a friend about it. So there is always SOME lapse between event and written report, even in this day and age when written communication is easy. Correct?

Now according to you, in the ancient world, this lapse has to be very, very small, if we are to consider the resulting written form valid.

For instance. 1 Cor. 15 is said by scholars to be written 20 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. That is a 20 year gap between event and written record. Of course, we can add that on the "oral" level, Paul is reporting things that have been talked about prior. Bart Ehrman himself grants that Paul had visited the Jerusalem church and spoken with a least a couple (certainly Peter) disciples only three years after the event. Thus on the oral level, we have a three year gap. But for you, the three year gap doesn't count for nothing. Things aren't "real" until they are written. Even in the ancient world.

The corpse of Jesus came back to life and flew away. Hordes of dead people came up out of their graves and wandered the streets of Jerusalem. And, despite the fact that these people had a state of the art postal service at their disposal, not a word of it got out. Not at least until Paul wrote about it around 55. Paul clearly was not a witness to any of it however.

Jesus was born at the end of the reign of Herod the Great, according to Gospels Matthew and Luke. Herod the Great died at a known time, 4 BC. Which means Jesus would have been born about 5 BC. Jesus began his public ministry at about age 30 (Luke 3:23). Three Passovers are mentioned during the course of his ministry. The commonly accepted age for Jesus at his death was about 33. Which places his death somewhere during the years 27-30. 1 Corinthians may well have been written as much as 30 years after the death of Jesus. But 25 years is a reasonable figure.

Paul met with Peter and James the brother of Jesus while in Jerusalem. And we know specifically from Acts that the disciples of Jesus began spreading the story of the risen Jesus about six weeks after Jesus was executed. Paul was tended to by a Christian man while incapacitated in Damascus. So there is no question that the story was already in circulation. It's just that it hadn't really begun to gain much notice yet. How do we know that? No one thought enough of the story yet to write a word about it. One would think that the whole hordes of dead people walking the streets would have provoked SOME attention. But no. In fact the brief mention in Gospel Matthew represents THE ONLY mention of this claim EVER. Does that mean that the author of Matthew was lying? The obvious conclusion is that he was either lying, extremely gullible, or subject to a wildly out of control flights of imagination.

So then, tell me what gap you permit between event and WRITTEN record for the latter to be acknowledged as data for analysis. Then you and I will go through Plutarch, Lucian, Seutonius, etc. and one by one poop on every modern historian of ancient Graeco-Roman antiquity...

Which of the writings of Plutarch, Lucian, Seutonius, etc., can you point to that describe a supernatural event and which are also commonly considered to be valid history?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 85 by liamconnor]

You also assume that the ancients were gullible idiots, ready believe anything anyone would tell them with zero evidence.

Quote me on this will you please? As far as I'm aware, the closest I've come to that is saying that the ancients did not have the same appreciation for skepticism and/or empiricism that we do today. This is not me saying they were gullible idiots, just that they did not have understanding of concepts like the null hypothesis, or god of the gaps or understanding of science. For example, ancient Greeks believed that thunder and lightning were caused by the god Zeus throwing lightning bolts around - they believed this, in my opinion, as a form of 'god of the gaps' because they did not understand electromagnetism.
Where is there evidence for the existence of Zeus, apart from stories told about him?

[Tired of the Nonsense]

[Replying to post 85 by liamconnor]

You also assume that the ancients were gullible idiots, ready believe anything anyone would tell them with zero evidence. This is ridiculous. It is difficult debating someone who betrays zero familiarity with the ancient world.

Have you ever read Greek and Roman mythology? Is it your opinion that the ancient Greeks and Romans DID NOT actually believe in their own religious beliefs?

[Danmark]

[Replying to post 81 by liamconnor]

What are your academic credentials that justify your attempts to issues orders about how to debate here and how to "do history?"