Bart Ehrman defends belief in a historical Jesus.

[Jagella]

According to the Huffington Post article, Did Jesus Exist?, New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman has the following to say:

In a society in which people still claim the Holocaust did not happen, and in which there are resounding claims that the American president is, in fact, a Muslim born on foreign soil, is it any surprise to learn that the greatest figure in the history of Western civilization, the man on whom the most powerful and influential social, political, economic, cultural and religious institution in the world — the Christian church — was built, the man worshipped, literally, by billions of people today — is it any surprise to hear that Jesus never even existed?

What's so important about Ehrman's position on the historicity of Jesus to Christian apologists is that not only does Ehrman insist that Jesus did exist, but Ehrman is an atheist! Since he's an atheist, he cannot be biased toward a real Jesus or so apologists seem to believe. So here we have a distinguished professor of New Testament who believes in a historical Jesus and without a Christian bias, or so we are told.

Question for Debate: But how unbiased is Ehrman really?

Of course, we all have biases that can skew our thinking, but there are many different kinds of bias and different degrees of bias. Some biases can be overcome with sufficient evidence, and other kinds of bias will remain regardless of the evidence. I think it's safe to say that an atheist can indeed have a pro-historical-Jesus bias. After all, depending on your theology, a real Jesus doesn't necessitate a real God. So Ehrman might well have a real-Jesus bias, and his being an atheist does not preclude his having such a bias.

There's plenty more I can say about Ehrman's article, but I will save that for later in the discussion.

[JoeyKnothead]

[Replying to Jagella in post #1]

If anything, he is biased against Jesus.

What is interesting is every historian that holds a position at university believes Jesus existed and was crucified. Ther are only a few that think Jesus is a myth, but even in that myth he was crucified. Also, they don't hold positions.

None of that establishes a factual basis for the existence of human / god hybrids.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #108]

Paul did not get the resurrection belief from the disciples. There were no disciples of Jesus in Paul's time. The Jerusalem groups experience of a risen Christ was the same as Paul's and they were all waiting for Christ to come to earth for the first time. The Jerusalem group worshipped a heavenly mythical Christ just as Paul and the other epistle writers did. The dispute between Paul and the Jerusalem group was over preaching to the gentiles, the Jerusalem group wanted to preach exclusively within the Jewish community.

The concept of an earthly Jesus and disciples came later from Mark writing in 70 CE or so. According to Paul, Peter was ordained by God to be an apostle just as Paul claimed for himself, there is no Jesus in all of this. We can't continue to read Marks gospel into the epistle writings.

Perhaps you are conflating disciples with apostles, they are not the same.

Ah I see. Semantics. ok, so long as you explain what you mean. The supposed followers of Jesus as in the gospels are 'disciples'.Apostles were those spreading the Christian message after the crucifixion.Paul also claimed to be an apostle, as well as Cephas and this rather mysterious 'Apollos'. Obviously disciples could be apostles or just followers, and apostles could have been of the 12 or not.

So, if we are clear, what is your point about the historical Jesus or indeed historical followers of Jesus?

Well, yes, My thinking is the same as yours, largely. They never saw a Jesus risen in the body but in the 'spirit', which to say, in their heads. This is hinted at strongly by both gospels and the epistles, at least, those we can credit to Paul.

And there's the thing about historicity. I don't doubt Paul's early letters up to Philemon, say. His flaws, self justification, ducking and diving, hypocrisy and self opinionated self importance of this flawed, irrational but well - intentioned person strikes me as quite convincing. The way I put it is,'you couldn't make this fellow up'. Marcion didn't fake him, Paul is real.

Thus, James apparently, Jesus brother (I don't buy it that this just means a disciple; Peter is never referred to as 'Lord's brother') and it seems the go - to head of the Jesus party in Jerusalem,was a real person. Peter (Cephas) was apostle to the Jews, as Paul was apostle to the Gentiles, at least as Paul saw it. Thus either Jesus was a real person they had followed or they had just made him up.

We are getting onto my own theories here, and it has to be said, because I think it is important, fits the facts, explains some puzzles and as Lucy van Pelt puts it 'Puts these people straight'.Because there's an awful lot of blinkered thinking done and real clues are simply ignored, both by Believers and skeptics.

Anyway, here's how I think it went down with a few explanations and ballpark dates.

200 -100 B.C. Greek rule in Judea. Maccabean or Hasmonean revolt. Daniel written as a call to arms with prophetic proof they would win. It can be dated to the year by history got right (though put in oracular language) and then, in the later part of the Selucid/Ptolemaic wars, goes wrong. The Maccabeans win and Hasmoneans rule Judea.

100 - 4 BC. It goes bad as these things do. Jannaeus treated Pharisee rebels (lestes or bandits; insurrectionist zealots) as rebels and crucified any he captured. Crucifixion being a Persian punishment and eagerly copied by other rulers, including those of Judea. Herod (of the forcibly converted Edomites) deposes the Hasmoneans and rules himself, supported by Augustus whose side Herod had supported against Anthony. Herod also hunted down and crucified Pharisee zealots or 'Bandits, (lestes).

Last years BC. Herod dies. And the history (despite attempts of Believers to wangle Herod's death to 1 BC or later) puts it at 4 B.C. Two sons succeed him. Archelaus rules Judea and Antipas rules Galilee. A third son, Philip rules the Trachontis sorta NE of Galilee.

4 BC - 6 AD Archelaus rules Judea. It is useful to note that Varus apparently acted as Syrian governor (hunting down and crucifying rebels) after his time ended, so there is no gap for an earlier Roman census under Quirinus. Archelaus was deposed and Rome took over and (no matter how the apologists play the semantics game) had a census of Judeans for Roman tax, overseen by Quirinis, governor of Syria, Coponius being the governor of Judea Not Galilee, which was still ruled by Antipas. The tax did not apply to Galilee so Joseph would not have had to sign up. not to go on forthe ever, there are many reasons why the birth in Bethlehem never happened.

6 AD up to 26 AD (without looking it up). Rule of Rome and Judea also under Augustus and Tiberius. Pilate is the governor of Judea for a long time while governors otherwise only had a few years governing Judea. Caipahas is apparently High priest all that time. As part of the roman administration, Sanhedrin (run by the Sadducee Boethius clan) and Pilate brutal and greedy as he was, worked well together, and Luke's suggestion that they were enemies is not supported by the evidence.

So, Jesus must have lived at that time. There aretwo principlesI use and not everyone does, but I think they are sound

(1) Embarrassment. Nobody would make up a story that was an embarrassment to them and they have to explain away or fiddle to correct. Jesus would have been born a Judean in Bethlehem, not Nazareth in Galilee, if it was made up. He would have been stoned by the Jews,not crucified by the Romans,if the (pro -Roman) Christians had made the story up. Thus Jesus was a Galilean crucified by Romans, and Paul supports that at least.

2) contradiction. Despite energetic fiddling by Bible apologists, severe contradiction is valid reason to see two stories one of which at least is dubious. Omission is also valid. That such a significant thing as the Bethlehem birth is ignored by Mark and denied by John, is evidence of the principle. Omission of significant events is negative evidence and does count. Thus the raising of Lazarus, declaration in the synagogue, tomb guard, repentant thief, any of Jesus' sermons in John and no Sanhedrin trial In John is valid reason to doubt these stories.

So while we can disregard Like's'about 30 years' we can dot in a few dates

26 AD Pilate and Caiaphas replaced. Last possible date for Jesus being crucified.

and I'll have to end there not only because it had got boring even for me and i need to check dates like the Aretus capture of Damascus, which is vital or dating John the baptist, Paul and the crucifixion of Jesus. And detractors need a chance to howl me down in print.

[TRANSPONDER]

pt2

ok I had to check my date as my head let me down

Pilate was governor(Prefect)of Judea from 26 AD - 36. when he was recalled by Tiberius and his long co -operation with Caiaphas ended, Caiaphas also ending his term as High priest.

Now,between Ad 33/4 and Aretus,King of nabatea dying in 40 AD, a number of things happened. Antipas divorced Aretus' daughter and married Herodias, the war with Aretus broke out, Damascus was captured by the Nabateans and Paul,he claims fled Damascus.

Tiberius dies 37 AD and Gaius becomes emperor. On numismatic (negative) evidence it seems that Aretas took Damascus 36/7 but it could be taking advantage of the death of Tiberius. So around 37 - 40 AD.
Gaius (Caligua) killed in 41 and Claudius was Emperor up to 54. Paul appears to refer to collecting for famine relief in Judea which would be the famine of 45 AD.

So, the death of the baptist,which Josephus says led to Antipas losing the war with Aretus, must be before 36/7 and the crucifixion of Jesus before 36. While Luke's dates are not to be trusted, about A.D 30 is reasonable for the execution of the baptist, crucifixion of Jesus and the conversion of Paul before he has to flee Damascus around 36/7 AD.

Paul by his own account had been declaring himself a convert to the Jesus party in Judea and was collecting to buy his acceptance in Jerusalem within a decade. He's already set up churches on the Greek mainland and had explained his views to the Roman Jewish Christian church.

The complaints about his gentile - Christianity followed and the call to explain himself to James (represented as a full hearing in Acts) is thought to be around AD 51. The story of Paul ends around AD 60 when he's sent to Rome, where Nero has been ruling since AD 54, and the Jewish war breaks out in 66 - 73.

That puts the whole Jesus activity - Paul in Rome in a couple of decades 30 AD - 60 AD.which won't surprise or disquiet anyone, but 29/30 for the execution of John and crucifixion to the conversion of Paul and the escape from Damascus, is a very tight handful of years.

But what I reckon we can rely on is that Jesus was a Galilean, executed by Rome, and the blame cast on the Jews is not credible. I know believers will excuse it but anyone open to doubt must doubt, the Sanhedrin trial (John doesn't have it) the blasphemy charge, which makes sense only to Christians who thought the messiah was God, the exchange custom which Judaism known nothing of, and the effort to get Rome off the hook and blame the Jews, specifically, for Jesus being executed in the style reserved for rebels, for what looks like a charge of subversion. That is far from the only clue that a real Jesus, a pharisee zealot messiah (failed), was turned by Paul and his converts into a gentile friendly proto Christian which neither he nor his followers in the Jesus party never were.

[TRANSPONDER]

sorry, inexplicable duplication. I may find something to add about the case for a real Jesus (not the Gospels Jesus) and the timeline for Paul and the Jesus party (disciples/apostles).

[neverknewyou]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #114]

I don't know if Jesus was historical or totally mythical. We know all about the mythical Jesus by reading the gospels, but where's the so called historical Jesus? No one wrote about him, Johnny come lately historians notwithstanding. Paul was the first known Christian author, and he was obsessed with a risen Christ.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #114]

I don't know if Jesus was historical or totally mythical. We know all about the mythical Jesus by reading the gospels, but where's the so called historical Jesus? No one wrote about him, Johnny come lately historians notwithstanding. Paul was the first known Christian author, and he was obsessed with a risen Christ.

Where indeed? In fact I can keep all my options open because i do lean towards a real actual Jesus, but I also have doubts (to say the least ) about the Jesus depicted in the gospels.

I must refer to A4G's generally accepted Jesus was crucified. That in itself is no compulsion to credit the Gospels,but I am aware that the general consensus is that the gospels are broadly reliable record derived from Jesus' followers, and yet i see darn compelling evidence that they are not, and evidence that appears to have been overlooked by these Authorities.

Matthew is considered to be the most Jewish of the gospels-writers, yet the evidence is that he did not understand his OT material as a Jew, and could not even read them correctly but in a flawed Greek translation, which let him to put into Jesus'mouth a misquote of Babes and Sucklings (check how it appears in the OT) and he could not have said that, never mind the various excuses that believers try to make for it. That it appears nowhere but in Matthew should be reason enough to doubt it, but that it is not feasible that Jesus could have said it, bangs that nail home. If the principle of fabrication hadn't already been settled by the Nativities, that nails it.

I was tempted to post the link to the docu. on Pilate (Timeline, Dan snow) but it is after all, entertainment, not research. And I went along for a long time, crediting that the John who wrote those sermons and wranglesthat Jesus had with the Jews, but he used (rather than was) an eyewitness whose account of the grilling before Ananus, former High priest (written as a full Sanhedrin hearing in the synoptic version) and the raising of Lazarus looks reliable. Just because now I must take Lazarus as invented (becauseit is unknown to the synoptics) and the basic knocking about by the Priests as put into different and contradictory settings raises doubts. Like the two donkeys, Matthew could NOT have written that if he'd been eyewitness, He'd know it was just one donkey. So while it is appalling to hear this jumped - up checkout girl declare that the evangelists were Jews, she's far from the only one to have accepted this claim.

So despite us having to doubt the last words on the cross, even if some adaptor of the synoptic original that Mark and Matthew used (both making their own separate alterations) had got them in aramaic, which convinced me until I learned they were a quote from Psalms,which seemed impossible to be real, the across the board agreement on the cruciixion has some credibility, even if the contradictions don't. And then Luke and John's different last words made as much sense as the different resurrection; a loud cry wasn't good enough; they each had to make something up.

Yet the principle of embarrassment makes the crucifixion look true. Just as Galilee look true. And that film (one can hardly call it Documentary rather than TV entertainment) at least pointed up how the Galilee was almost a byword for zealot insurrection. Though the persistent whispers or echoes of Jesus' connection with zealotry are persistently ignored or dismissed. " No,no; there was no connection. His kingdom was not of this world. Look; it says so in the totally reliable John gospels".

Sure it does.

But the fact is that despite the claims even by those without an agenda that Jesus is soundly supported by extra Biblical material, it isn't. It is absolutely not. Another shocker in the vid. was quoting the Flavian testament without even mentioning that it is partly known to be forgery and on internal evidence (and not being mentioned before 300 AD,I recall) is totally fake. Philo says nothing about Jesus, though he mentions Pilate. Tacitus is evidently recounting what he has heard, Suetonius may be talking about a Chrestus who is nothing to do with Jesus. And the rest of the stuff (Pliny, Phleghon, Bar -Serapeon) is just irrelevant. There is NO real extra - Biblical support for Jesus.

But I do think that the 'embarrassment' in the gospels makes at least for an original story the early Christians didn't like but were stuck with, so they rewrote it to suit themselves, and you may cash those chips in and take it to the bank.

[TRANSPONDER]

Indulge me.

It is utterly the norm to depict the Romans involved in Jesus' demise as Legionaries in lorica segmentata. While one may applaud the effort to make them look like Roman army rather than the Hollywood version of it, I have called Pilate's soldiers 'Auxiliaries', and that is what (so I read) they were.500 in the Antonia fortress as a garrison in Jerusalem, and 500 at Caesarea,. Pilate would march them to Jerusalem at festival times to make a total 1000 man Temple peace keeping force during festival times.

While the legion by the Jewish war was Roman (the Fretensis raised by Julius Caesar) the soldiers of Pilate seem to have been Auxiliaries, who were not Romans but serving 25 years to become Roman citizens. Their weapon was the spear, not the pilum, chainmail not the steel bands, and an oval shield, not the cylindrical legionary shield. Either they were auxiliaries brought from Rome, (The Jovian Romanorum) or former Herodian Syrian troops taken over by Rome, the Sebastenorum. Just a matter that niggles me a bit when we forever get legionary soldiers at the crucifixion.

I should have liked to post a piccie, but it's the devil'sown job to copy and paste any pictures these days. Nevertheless'plenty of Info and pics if one Googles 'Roman Auxiliaries'. hah....this should do.



"As Judaea was considered a minor Province it was ruled by Romans of equestrian, rather than senatorial, rank and garrisoned by auxiliary as opposed to legionary troops. The correct title of the new governors of Judaea was praefectus, as confimed by an inscription discovered in Caesarea. The prefects of Judaea inherited their troops from their Herodian predecessors. In all probability some of Herod's soldiers were simply incorporated into the Roman army... It is beleved the garrison of Judaea was initially one cavalry unit, the Ala I Sebastenorum and at least five cohorts of infantry, one of them possibly Cohors I Sebastenorum. The evidence for units from other regions comes from a surprising source, the New Testament. In the Acts of the Apostles, Acts 10, St. Peter "about the year AD 40 converted Cornelius a centurion from the "Italian cohort". Some scholars have doubted whether a prefect could have under his command a unit of Roman citizens from Italy. However, it is knownw that Cohors ICivium Romanorum Ingenuorum, was amongst the troops commanded by a prefect in the province of Raetia, so it may be that the New Testament does in fact record a citiizen unit in Judaea. also mentioned in the bible is Cohors Augusta the unit that took Paul to Rome for trial before the Emperor...."
UNRV ancient Rome forum.

[neverknewyou]

[Replying to Tcg in post #6]

Ehrman is referring to hypothetical sources that do not exist. He refers to these sources in his book, Did Jesus Exist? When it comes to Jesus, Ehrman is a true believer with nothing but turtles all the way down to show for it.

[Shem Yoshi]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #106]

The earliest Christians, the epistle writers, worshipped a Christ figure that had never been on earth before but were promised by the likes of Paul that he would come soon.

I'm not sure about that. Many people believe that Paul invented Christ.. However Paul directly mentions having known and interacting with Peter, the same Peter as in the Gospel (Gal 2:8; Gal 2:11; Gal 2:14), Paul also writes to having known and interacted with James, John, Mark, Luke, and many many more Apostles.

And Paul himself confesses that Christianity was around before he converted. He himself says he persecuted the first disciples. It seems to me that Paul creating the idea of Jesus is certainly an undeveloped and poor hypothesis. We have him confessing Christianity was around before he believed it, and confessing he knew the same people who knew Jesus while he was still alive before the Crucifixion. It seems to me you would have to get through these pitfalls before insisting Paul was the creation of Jesus the Christ

[neverknewyou]

[Replying to Shem Yoshi in post #119]

The names come from Paul's writings. None of the epistle writers refer to disciples, that term came later when the gospels were written, which are pure fiction. None of the epistle writers were aware of the gospel story except for the very few that were written post gospel. Paul was certainly unaware of the gospel story, it wasn't written until after his death.