Reconstructing the Historical Jesus

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I own and have read the book,The Resurrection of Jesus - John Dominique Crossan an N. T. Wright in Debate

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You should read it.

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THen you have even less excuse for your misrepresentations of Crossan's views. However I have seen no indication that either has much to say of interest to me. The audio debate was clearly focussed on theological issues which strike me as a waste of time.

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If I had witnessed someone executed and the show up fully alive later I just might act atypically as well. It strengthens his argument it doesn't weaken it.

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Wright's concession was their their reaction TO the resurrection was atypical. In case you've forgotten Wright takes the position that the resurrection really did happen, thus your objection really makes no sense at all.

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I did say I was speaking of the gospels.

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That's good because so was I.Exactly - almost nothing. It's just a list of people who supposedly witnessed appearances. It doesn't say anything about where, or what the appearance consisted of or whether Jesus said anything at all. And the appearance to the 500 can't even be clearly identified in the Gospel accounts (including Acts as an extension of Luke).

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Simply different appearances. Even John mentions that the appearance in Galilee was the 3rd time He had appeared to the disciples.

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That simply isn't possible. Matthew and Luke's accounts are mutually exclusive. The disciples can't be in two places at once. I find it truly amazing that anyone could insist that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and not care what it says. Because if you did care what it said you could read it rather than just trying to make up excuses.

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Both Crossan and Wright will agree that there was originally more to Mark's gospel that has been lost at some point in time.

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And they could both be wrong.

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We only know what Paul said in the letters that we have. We don't know what else he might have said. Paul does use the term resurrection though which makes referring to the tomb redundant.

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It would hardly take much to mention it (just changing one word would do it !) - and if it were known that the tomb were seen to be empty, that would seem a point that might be worth mentioning. But the fact is that there is no mention of the empty tomb or any tomb in Paul's writings. Thus it is certainly possible that early Christians had no knowledge of what happened to Jesus' body and the tomb story simply grew over time.

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And you know what the real events are.

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I didn't make that claim. After all my point is that the evidence is too weak to reliably reconstruct the real events - even of the alleged appearance.

Mark 16
A "young man" is at the tomb and tells Mary, Mary and Salome that Jesus will be found in Galilee. They "tell nobody"Matthew 28
An angel tells Mary and Mary that Jesus will be found in Galilee. They see Jesus who repeats the information. The disciples go to Galilee and see Jesus (who gives them the Great Comission).Luke 24Mary, Mary, Joanna and others meet two angels. The reference to Galilee is still present, but now refers to past events - not where Jesus will be. They go and tell the disciples.
Two of the disciples (one called Cleopas - a name appearing nowhere else in Luke, Acts or the other Gospels) are in Emmaus, near Jerusalem and meet Jesus. After they eventually recognise Jesus, he disappears. They go back to Jersualem and see Jesus, who commands them not to leave the city (before Pentecost). This is folllowed by the Ascension.Acts 1:
The injunction not to leave Jerusalem is repeated, as is the Ascension. This account adds two angels who say that Jesus will return in the same way as he just left.
(Acts 2 includes Pentecost. There is no suggestion of a visit to Galilee, and the disciples are nethusiastically preaching from this point on. There are no more appearances listed until Acts 9, with Paul's conversion).John 20-21
Mary goes to the tomb, doesn't meet any angels and brings Peter to see the empty tomb. Then she sees two angels in the tomb, and Jesus. She tells the disciples. Jesus appears twice to the disciples in Jerusalem.
Then (John 21) the disciples go to Galilee and see Jesus again.If the Bible is as God wants us to have it, then we must conclude that God does not want us to know what really happened. The accounts are just too inconsistent to be relied on,

I'm afraid that that post isn't easy to understand unless you read the post it replies to (there are links at the bottom of the post to help you do that).The translation was of the Torah (the first 5 books of the OT). The NT was written in Greek and so didn't to be translated into that language.

It would help if you learnt to use the quote tags.Brian is absolutely right, Jesus didn't make enough noise to attract the attention of any true contemporary writer, which does suggest that the Gospel accounts are greatly exaggerated.For later accounts, even if we assume that the direct Josephus reference (the so-called Testamonium Flavianum) is held to be partially genuine I'd guess that Jesus was less influential in life than John the Baptist/ The indirect reference, however, is more likely genuine, and sufficient to indicate that Jesus did exist - except that there are questions about the interpretation. I don't think that there is much else of value outside the Bible (Tacitus might be, but only if he got his information from Roman records instead of Christian sources which I doubt).But we can't rule out the Biblical sources. Sure, they are biased and exaggerated, but that doesn't mean that they are complete fictions.

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When "historical Jesus" proponents actually get around to describing who Jesus Christ actually was, they invariably produce an individual who wasn't named either Jesus or Christ. And the reason I say "wasn't executed by Romans" is because he doesn't seem to have been executed by Romans, just like Jesus Malverde wasn't actually ever shot/hanged by Federales.

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Going through these, presumably when you say that he wasn't named "Jesus" you mean that hiss name was Jewish ("Yeshua" or "Yehoshua") which was transliterated into Greek as "Jesus". Or to put it another way, proponents of a historical Jesus understand that "Jesus" is a transliteration of a common Hebrew name.As Modulous points out "Christ" is a title, and in this case it is a translation into Greek of the Hebrew word, transliterated into English as Messiah. Again another point which simply states that proponents of a historical Jesus seem to have a better understanding of the relevant material than you do.And if you have an argument against the crucifixion that amounts to more than "the official Roman records of crucifixions in Judaea were lost therefore the Romans didn't crucify anybody in Judaea" I'd like to see it.Crash, do you think that you could stop giving Jon ammunition by making obviously bad arguments like this ? Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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If it was a transliteration of a common Hebrew name, then why aren't there Greek Hebrews named "Jesus"?

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How do you know that there aren't ? And if it isn't a Greek transliteration of a Hebrew name then why did Josephus use it as the name of other Jews ? (e.g. Jesus son of Damneus, made High Priest in Antiquities 20.9 - one of several)

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And again, what's the evidence that we're actually talking about the person that's the basis for the Jesus myths?

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In fact none of my points depend on that. Jesus is a Greek transliteration of a common Jewish name, whether there was a historical Jesus or not. Christ is a Greek translation of Messiah whether there was a historical Jesus or not. The records of Roman executions in Judaea for the period are lost - and therefore claiming that the lack of such a record means that there was no crucifixion is a claim that there were no crucifixions in Judaea at that time, whether there was a historical Jesus or not.Crash, your arguments are ignorant and irrational whether your conclusion happens to be correct or not. You can - and should - do better.

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I don't get the sense that you're examining my arguments, because your posts have nothing to do with them.

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I guess you missed the actual quotes from your posts then.

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What's the evidence for the historic existence of Jesus? That's my only argument.

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Well that isn't true either. You DID try to argue that the proposed historical Jesus was too different from the Biblical Jesus because - among other things - he wasn't called "Jesus Christ". Which is ignorant. You DID try to argue that the absence of an official record of the crucifixion was sufficient to conclude that it did not happen. And that is irrational, too.And there are others, that I haven't touched on, for instance your idea that your fictional Jesus hypothesis should be taken as the default and has no burden of proof.Crash, you've got yourself into a deep hole. It's past time you stopped digging.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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No, I saw them. Why did you think those were part of an argument?

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Because they were.

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But that's true, isn't it? Both you and Mod have made very compelling cases that, if the historic Jesus existed, he wasn't called "Jesus Christ", because, even though that's used as a name by Christians and by the Bible that's not actually a name.

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It's true but only in a very literalistic and misleading way. As I said it is entirely attributable to the conversion from Hebrew or Aramaic to Greek.

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I did not at any time assert this

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Oddly enough you haven't presented any other reason for your assertion that there was no crucifixion in your replies to my posts.And this comes close enough (Message 147) Or (which has other problems, too).You obviously think that the entirely expected lack of Roman records is a problem. But why ?Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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If there was no Jesus, then clearly Jesus could not have been crucified.

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It appears rather that your argument goes the other way. And since you don't have much of a case that there was no historical Jesus either, I don't see how you can get past agnosticism on that point.

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There's not an "entirely expected" lack.

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There isn't ? How many detailed records from Judaea, form that period do we have ? Not many, to the best of my knowledge. Certainly no official records of crucifixions.

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The lack is more consistent with a mythical Jesus than a historical Jesus; parsimony says that when records are absent, it's more likely that they were never made than that they were made and then all were lost.

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If the Romans did keep records, and we don't have them - and let me be absolutely clear I am not talking about records of Jesus, but of the records in general - it follows that the records are lost. You have argued that the Romans did keep records. So either we have them, or your argument is incorrect.

You think that because Jesus is important NOW, the Romans would have taken special care of the records relating to him ? Or that other people would have taken special note of him ? That's not rational. The contemporary reaction to Jesus would be based on his importance - to them - at the time. Add in the various destructions (notably the destruction of Jerusalem a few decades later) and the normal loss of records over time, and it's not surprising that relatively obscure figures would leave little trace.Yes, the Gospels don't depict Jesus as insignificant, but let's face it, they're highly biased accounts. Exaggeration is to be expected. And we have very few true contemporary mentions of Socrates, a very controversial figure, whose execution was likely far more shocking than the crucifixion of one more anti-Roman agitator would have been in Judaea in the early 1st Century.

I think that his following was relatively small, and certainly not interested in official records that they could not even get access to (and why would they need to ? Has anyone asked for official records of L Ron Hubbard or Joseph Smith's lives to prove that they existed ?). Besides the world was ending soon - or so they thought. It's generally accepted that the early Christian relied on oral accounts because there was no need to write it all down - the end was coming real soon now.

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Well, but I do have a case for there being no historical Jesus - there doesn't seem to have been a historical Jesus.

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That's just an assertion.

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The burden of proof, here, is on the historic Jesus position. I've already demonstrated how the mythical Jesus would be completely consistent with other observed instances of myth formation. But if "historical Jesus" is actually true, then it's a completely one of a kind event.

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It is ? That's odd. Seems to me that there were plenty of Jewish cult leaders and not a few modern ones.

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As many as there are! It's not like there was some kind of purposeful purge of documents from Judea, such that we would predict, a priori, that the execution record of Jesus would be gone.

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So you THINK we have lots of official records of Roman executions in JUdaea, but you haven't bothered to investigate it. Or taken into consideration the effects of the Jewish revolts, or all the other upheavals and events that would cause records to be lost. But OK, show me evidence that we have official records of at least 10% of the executions of Pontius Pilate. Just one in ten, not the huge majority you seem to expect - and I'll concede that you might have a point. MIGHT have a point. There'd still be a 90% chance that if there was a real record, it would have been lost.

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It just happens to be gone, if indeed it ever existed at all. And therefore the explanation that it never existed is more parsimonious than the explanation that it did at one time exist, but coincidentally was also lost. (But, somehow, the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, half a tablet that says "INRI", somebody kept those, but nobody thought to hang on to Jesus's execution writ, or anything he actually wrote? Absurd.)

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Oh come on, you know that most "relics" are fakes. At one point the "fragments of the True Cross" added up to much, much more than one Roman cross ! And again, your argument only makes sense if we have the majority of the records - but YOU DON'T KNOW THIS, and you haven't bothered to find out.

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But it doesn't follow from that that Jesus's execution writ was among those lost.

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I don't claim that it does. What I am claiming is that your argument is irrational because it assumes - without the slightest evidence - that enough of the records survived that the loss of any specific record would be surprising. If we have lost virtually all of them (as far as I know we have NONE) then it is not surprising at all, and your argument fails.

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It's a non-sequitur to go from one to the other. We have just as many Roman records as we have, and any record at all of Jesus - his life, his times, his actions, something must have gone on the record at some point - are not among them.

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We don't have the records of the 6 AD Census, carried out when the Romans annexed Judaea. Are you suggesting that the Romans went to all that bother of doing a census - for tax purposes and didn't make records ? Absurd ! But we don't have them so they must have been lost.THe point is simple. Either we have the records, the Romans did not keep records, or they were lost. You assume that we have the records - but the burden of proof for that is on you. And you've produced not one shred of evidence for it.

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No, because there's already a record that L. Ron Hubbard and Joseph Smith existed. There's reams of evidence such that you would have to be an imbecile to deny it. Hubbard was frequently photographed and we have hundreds of his writings, both professional and personal. Smith sat for dozens of paintings and we have his own writings, too.

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But who goes into that before concluding that they existed, at least provisionally ?

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Nonsense - there's too many early church writings for that have been the case. That's a clearly absurd and self-serving post-hoc rationalization about early Christians.

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Only a few date from before 60 AD, though, and those lack detailed accounts of Jesus' life and teachings, being written for other purposes
(and by Paul, more interested in promoting his views, and organising the gentile churches than Jesus life and teachings)

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That started incredibly popular new religions, but about whom nothing could be historically established?

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The key word is STARTING. The success of Christianity came later, with Paul and even later people being major players. Under Jesus Christianity seems to have been no more than a minor Jewish cult, restricted to Judaea, a backwater part of the Roman Empire.

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No, the ratio of certainty-of-existence to evidence-for-existence going on here is completely unprecedented.

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Is it ? As I've said there is damn little for Socrates, and I'm certain of Socrates existence. Buddha seems to have left little evidence, too. Homer is almost unknown outside of his works (themselves modified by later writers). And what about Moses ? I find Moses far more doubtful than Jesus. We can't even place the Biblical stories of Moses into known history !

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So, the relics are fakes but Jesus can't be a fake?

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Nice try at a red herring. But you seem to miss the point that I am pointing out the flaws in your arguments AGAINST the existence of Jesus (and there are better arguments). Your argument relied on there being genuine relics - yet we know that there were many fakes, and no good reason to accept that any directly associated with Jesus were genuine.

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That's what I really don't get at all. We're reasonable people, so we agree that 99.99% of the mythology surrounding Jesus is utter bullshit with no truth to it at all. And now I go slightly further and say that an additional characteristic of the Jesus mythology - his existence - is bunk as well, and now you're drawing the line and saying "woah, that's a step too far."

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Wrong. I'm not arguing that Jesus definitely existed and you're NOT being reasonable. Is it reasonable to assume that we have huge amounts of detailed Roman records - from a region frequently torn by war - just because your argument requires it ? When you are making the point of who has the burden of proof a part of your argument ?

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Sure. But we know they existed.

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Exactly. Your argument that if we don't have them, then they didn't exist is wrong. We know that the records (in general - not those of Jesus in particular) existed, but we don't have them. So we can't conclude anything from the absence of official records about Jesus. If they existed we almost certainly wouldn't have them. Thus their absence tells us nothing.

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But, I know what you mean. In almost every case, it's likely that the people who initially believe in the existence of L. Ron Hubbard and Joe Smith do so because everyone around them believes it, and therefore it just seems so reasonable.

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And that is why the Early Christians had no need to go digging around for official records (which would not have been easily obtained). That's the point. Nobody was asking for proof. Nobody expected it to be needed. So once again the argument against Jesus' existence fails.Now if you paid attention you'd know that my position is that there probably was a person on whom the Gospel stories are based. That the contrary position is a fringe position, but not one that should just be dismissed as unreasonable. And I was trying to make that point to Jon. Thanks for sabotaging me there !