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Author Topic:   Reconstructing the Historical Jesus
Modulous
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Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 362 of 560 (620636)
06-18-2011 10:12 PM
Reply to: Message 360 by crashfrog
06-18-2011 9:43 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
I've never claimed that it is. But the fact that the Qu'ran exists and claims the existence of Mohammed isn't evidence for the existence of Mohammed, no more than a post of me claiming that Claudia Schiffer is standing in my kitchen is evidence that Claudia Schiffer is standing in my kitchen.
The Qur'an is one of the sources of the historical Mohammed that historians use (though a minor one, since it doesn't say a great deal), as well as the biographies written a long time after he was alive, a reference from someone that heard of him shortly after he had died, and some collected sayings the earliest copies of which were well after he was alive.
Invariably the "evidence" for Christ is nothing more than taking the claims of the Gospels at least partially at face value, and offering the claims of the Gospels as evidence for themselves.
Yes, the evidence for Jesus is in the small collection of documents about Jesus that exist, most of which are the gospels.
But the "Gospels and Paul" can't be evidence for the claim that Jesus existed because the "Gospels and Paul" are the claim that Jesus existed.
The evidence for the existence of Socrates is the claim that Socrates existed (by Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes).

This message is a reply to:
 Message 360 by crashfrog, posted 06-18-2011 9:43 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 370 by crashfrog, posted 06-19-2011 12:49 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 382 of 560 (620666)
06-19-2011 4:15 PM
Reply to: Message 370 by crashfrog
06-19-2011 12:49 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Relevance? This topic is about Jesus, not Mohammed.
How historians investigate ancient figures is kind of relevant, I would have thought.
Yes, the evidence for Jesus is in the small collection of documents about Jesus that exist, most of which are the gospels.
But this is circular.
It is not circular, since it does not go around in a circle. There is a pile of evidence for Jesus' existence, and historians sift through that evidence to see if anything can be said to be reliable evidence supporting his existence.
Claims can't be "self-evidenced"
But claims regarding ancient figures do rely almost solely on documents written about those ancient figures at or around the time of their existence. Then there is the work of the historian to try and figure out what is propaganda, religious dogma and what might actually be true, or more exactly, what can be called historical.
Take it this way. You don't, for instance, take the claims of the Gospel and Paul about the resurrection at face value, even though they're in unanimous agreement that it happened. Regardless of its appearance in multiple "separate" Gospels and the work of Paul, you take it as a single claim that is supported by no evidence.
And you can't think of a reason why the claim 'A man was executed and came back to life' might require higher evidential support than 'A man was executed'? I suppose 'I saw a cat yesterday' is a claim that requires the same degree of evidence as 'I saw a hippogryph yesterday'.
Ergo, the flaw in your historicism is made apparent.
It's not my historicism. It's the likes of Gza Vermes, Paula Fredriksen, Bart Ehrman, Ernest Renan and so on and so forth.
The evidence for the existence of Socrates is the claim that Socrates existed (by Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes).
Is the evidence for Santa Claus the claim (by 7-year-olds) that Santa Claus exists?
No, and nor am I proposing the beliefs of present day children are the evidence for the historical Jesus. I don't know that exact details of the evidence for Nikolaos of Myra but I suspect a lot of it is in the written claims made by other people, as is also the case with Socrates. Or did you think that Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle, and Aristophanes referred to an assortment of modern 7-year olds?
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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 Message 370 by crashfrog, posted 06-19-2011 12:49 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 388 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 12:00 AM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 402 of 560 (620705)
06-20-2011 9:40 AM
Reply to: Message 388 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 12:00 AM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
I'm aware of how historians investigate ancient figures, and the way they do it most definitely not by taking the self-serving claims of holy books at credulous face value.
No, but they do take self-serving documents and try to use certain methodologies for extracting from them what can be called historical.
But nothing written about Jesus was written at or around the time of his existence. It was all written decades after he supposedly existed.
Like Mohammed. And possibly Socrates (I'm not sure of the exact dates of the writings about Socrates). I know when the writings about Jesus are dated by historians (unlike you who seems to think Mark is 50AD for some reason). When I said 'at or around' I was referring to a time-scale of decades.
Take it this way. You don't, for instance, take the claims of the Gospel and Paul about the resurrection at face value, even though they're in unanimous agreement that it happened. Regardless of its appearance in multiple "separate" Gospels and the work of Paul, you take it as a single claim that is supported by no evidence.
And you can't think of a reason why the claim 'A man was executed and came back to life' might require higher evidential support than 'A man was executed'?
But again the existence of men executed by Romans don't lend credence to the Jesus mythology, they merely lend verisimilitude.
I was answering your question as to why the resurrection isn't commonly held to be historical.
You've missed the point completely. If first century authors can make self-evident claims, why can't modern children?
Clearly you missed my point wherein I was mocking your poor analogy. Perhaps you can explain how a document about a person written within decades of their life can be analogous to a 7-year old's beliefs about a person written thousands of years after their life.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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 Message 388 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 12:00 AM crashfrog has replied

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 Message 414 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 2:00 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 423 of 560 (620757)
06-20-2011 3:00 PM
Reply to: Message 414 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 2:00 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
And what about when documents are so plainly self-serving, fantastical, and ahistorical that literally nothing of any merit, except the most general of claims - like, "the Earth existed in 1 AD" - can be reliably extracted? Surely it's possible for a document to be so untrustworthy as to tell us almost nothing at all about history?
I think the question answers itself, doesn't it?
If the evidence for the existence of Mohammed and Socrates is truly as poor as it is for Jesus - which I doubt - then I'm prepared to accept that they didn't exist, either. I've made no study of it. But there's a lower burden of evidence for the existence of Socrates since he's not the focus of a major world religion, and isn't venerated in any way except as a teacher that Plato and some other guys really liked.
I think the cases for Socrates and Mohammed are marginally better than for Jesus.
I don't know why the evidence for existence should vary dependent on what other people believe about him though, maybe you can explain that in more depth.
Right. It's a more extraordinary situation, so it requires more extraordinary evidence. Correct?
Yup. Is there something extraordinary about people taking real events and sprucing them up with some magic?
If you're taking claims at face value, the person making them doesn't matter. If you're not, if you're applying skepticism and discernment about whose claims have credibility and whose don't, then you're not taking claims at face value.
Then I'm not taking claims at face value, and nor are historians. For instance, Mark is taken as having more credibility than John who has more credibility than a 7-year old modern child.
So then the question is - can we trust the Gospel writers when they claim that Jesus actually existed? Since we can't seem to trust them on anything else, since we already conclude that the Gospel writers will say whatever they think they need to say in the service of making Christianity the One True Faith, the answer is clearly "no."
But some historians do trust other things the Gospel writers wrote. Such things as what Jesus said and did.

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 Message 414 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 2:00 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 426 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:09 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 425 of 560 (620759)
06-20-2011 3:08 PM
Reply to: Message 422 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 2:54 PM


Re: If not Jesus, then who ?
Well, yes. It is more specific. You proponents of the Historical Jesus position are claiming a very extraordinary power of specificity to be able to connect a major world religion to a specific human individual lost to history with absolutely no doubt whatsoever.
Do you have any evidence to support the notion that proponents of Historical Jesus tout their claim with 'absolutely no doubt whatsoever'?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 422 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 2:54 PM crashfrog has replied

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 Message 427 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:11 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 428 of 560 (620764)
06-20-2011 3:28 PM
Reply to: Message 427 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 3:11 PM


absolute claims rebutted.
Well, sure. Were you looking when Jon, a proponent of the Historical Jesus position, opened up a thread that insisted that having any doubt at all about the existence of Jesus was akin to being a religious fundamentalist who ignores the evidence for evolution?
Of course, you can criticise the strength of Jon's initial claim, but he has since been using 'more likely than not' which seems to be indicating tentativity rather than 'no doubt whatsoever'. I've not even seen PaulK make the claim one way or another, he seems focussed on his perceived flaws in your position. As for me?
quote:
Showing that a person actually existed 2000 years ago is very difficult. Especially a person in that time in that place. There is evidence for a historical Jesus - the five Gospels and the letters of Paul and that's really the meat and bones of it. Is it conclusive? No.
quote:
Yes we should be skeptical. Our conclusions remain tentative etc etc.
quote:
I'm just arguing that the character Jesus Christ can weakly be traced to a real person about which we can derive a very limited history.
quote:
There is evidence, it's just not fantastic or conclusive.
quote:
The historical Jesus is much like the historical Appolonius. Very little can be discerned, but there is some weak support for the notion that an apocolyptic jew called Yeshua or similar, preached an impending end times, people thought he was a messiah, and his contingent was possibly armed, and after he was executed, the apologetics to explain why their Camping didn't fulfill Messianic prophecy started.
quote:
There is no evidence that necessarily demonstrates Jesus' existence. And I didn't claim as such.
quote:
As I said, the apparent conflict of meaning is down to what we mean by evidence. You mean 'something that could only be if Jesus existed', which is not how I was using it. I referred to that kind of evidence as conclusive and from the outset I said I did not have that kind of evidence.
There's probably more, but that should cover it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 427 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:11 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 431 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:34 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 433 of 560 (620771)
06-20-2011 3:42 PM
Reply to: Message 431 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 3:34 PM


Re: absolute claims rebutted.
Can you show me where you express any doubt that "the character Jesus Christ can weakly be traced to a real person about which we can derive a very limited history"?
The weakly was meant to imply the evidence only supports the trace weakly, as is consistent with everything else that I said. Unless you propose that I was tentative at all other times, but somehow became certain for a single post?

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 Message 431 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:34 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 436 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:55 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 439 of 560 (620784)
06-20-2011 5:39 PM
Reply to: Message 436 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 3:55 PM


Re: absolute claims rebutted.
Nothing in your posts seems very tenative; it seems like you're arriving at certainties based on evidence you admit is sketchy.
If saying 'it is not conclusive', 'our conclusions remain tentative', 'There is no evidence that necessarily demonstrates Jesus' existence' and other such language is insufficient to persuade you that I have regularly stressed the tentativity of the conclusions and it has somehow led you to the belief that it seems I am 'arriving at certainties' allow me to correct your misapprehension (however it was caused).
The inference that Jesus existed is based on weak evidence, and the conclusion is tentative.
You don't seem willing to admit any likelihood at all that there was no such person as Jesus. Am I wrong about that, and that is something you could admit?
Again, your projection of certainty onto me is unwarranted. Of course Jesus could have been completely made up. I'm perfectly willing to entertain that there are plenty of historical characters that could have been wholly or mostly invented. Indeed, I'd stress that historical evidence is fraught with difficulties because they are often human reports and humans are capable of lying or being deluded.
That the possibility that Jesus was entirely fictional is at least a reasonable possibility?
Of course. I'm not committed one way or another on the issue. I don't care if Jesus existed. It seems to me that the consensus by relevant experts is that there is sufficient grounds to believe there was a historical Jesus and I'm happy to roll with that.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 436 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:55 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 459 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 1:49 PM Modulous has seen this message but not replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 441 of 560 (620786)
06-20-2011 6:02 PM
Reply to: Message 426 by crashfrog
06-20-2011 3:09 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
Because more people have been good teachers than have been the focus of a major world religion. Ergo it's less extraordinary to be a good teacher than it is to be the focus of a major world religion.
Something is the focal point for a major world religion. The question is, is the notion that it was an individual extraordinary? How many major world religions have a founder that was invented versus how many major world religions have historical founders about which mythos and magic has been woven. I'm sure, if we looked we'd find a lot of historical founding humans and maybe some undetermined ones that might have no individual founder.
Not at all. But there is something extraordinary about a specific person becoming the focus of a major world religion, when so many religions - most of them, by far - have fictional people as their focus.
Maybe we could compare.
Christianity - under dispute in this thread
Islam - Mohammed, consensus is he is a historical figure.
Buddhusm - Siddhartha Gautama, believed to be historical
Hinduism - no claimed founder
Judaism - claimed founder, the consensus of which is thought to be a fictional construct.
Any others?
Well, ok. Now we're getting somewhere! Given, though, that both Mark and John are serial fabricators with no regard for the truth when lying serves the interest of their faith, why should they be given more credibility than a 7-year-old talking about Santa Claus?
Because if they were going to fabricate a messiah, it probably wouldn't have been someone that failed so miserably and all the other explanations this thread has detailed. See Grizz's post for more.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 426 by crashfrog, posted 06-20-2011 3:09 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 448 by caffeine, posted 06-21-2011 9:24 AM Modulous has seen this message but not replied
 Message 460 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 1:51 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 442 of 560 (620787)
06-20-2011 7:04 PM
Reply to: Message 419 by Phat
06-20-2011 2:21 PM


Re: Whats in it for them?
i see no examples of an author or supposed author benefitting personally from spreading the story.
The initial stories of Jesus were probably told orally, for the very same reason you highlighted. As we know from empirical evidence, even true stories grow in the telling. The story could have grown considerably in the decades before it reached the status of being worthy for someone of letters to commit it to parchment.
When we look at the character of Moses, he seems very much like he was created to serve a narrative purpose in the origins of the Jewish people. This isn't quite so with Jesus, whose life doesn't quite serve the purposes it might otherwise (why not have him die of old age, or ascending bodily to heaven for example (as some later groups have attempted to say)) - but the miracles and so forth obviously serve as a means of convincing others of his importance. If you believed the Jesus story when you heard it, you might embellish a story from 'Jesus fed homeless people some bread' all the way to 5,000 with hardly any bread through a series of 'Telephone' like story rehashings. The benefit is that your listener will be more interested, making you appear to be a holder of precious information - which seems to be a natural social drive.
Just look at Matthew's attempts to make Jesus to be comparable with other prophets like Moses with the killing of the children, the sojourn in Egypt etc. Whether this was Matthew's purpose or whoever Matthew heard the ideas from, since it isn't even mentioned in other accounts we can surely discard it as agenda-based mythos rather than as historical.

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 Message 419 by Phat, posted 06-20-2011 2:21 PM Phat has not replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 462 of 560 (620881)
06-21-2011 2:02 PM
Reply to: Message 460 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 1:51 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
But I don't contend that the authors of the Gospels "fabricated" a messiah, no more than Santa Claus was fabricated by 7-year-olds. I merely contend that they have no credibility on the subject, given that they fabricated so much else.
And the point is that some things don't look fabricated, that if they were fabricated we'd expect something different. I mean, I think everyone agrees that Plato made stuff up about Socrates to serve his own purposes but that doesn't mean we can't try and pick out what might be historical from what are Plato's inventions.

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 Message 460 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 1:51 PM crashfrog has replied

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 Message 464 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 2:27 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 466 of 560 (620891)
06-21-2011 2:58 PM
Reply to: Message 464 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 2:27 PM


Re: Christianity without Jesus
But my point is that they look exactly like what they would look like if they were fabricated. Your point is that they don't look like what they would look like if they were fabricated to serve the agenda of the first Christians.
But I don't contend that the Jesus mythology was fabricated by the first Christians. The first Christians were simply the first ones to believe the fabrications - fabrications that may well have included "there are all these other Christians all over the place."
I'm not suggesting you do contend that. I'm just saying that it doesn't look entirely fabricated to me. Maybe if you could indicate who the proposed fabricators were; were they Jews, Greeks, someone else?
Determining the historical existence of Socrates is a subject for another thread.
The methods in investigating ancient figures is, however, a subject for this thread.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 464 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 2:27 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 468 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 3:19 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 473 of 560 (620901)
06-21-2011 4:06 PM
Reply to: Message 468 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 3:19 PM


foundations
You've put forward your case as to why you think the Jesus story was made up, and that seems to be that people make up stories about people.
The counter to this is that Jesus has some characteristics that seem unusual to have been created in this fashion.
Your counter is that he does not.
I don't see much merit in going around any further. Would you agree that it is not an extraordinary claim that the founding cause of a major world religion is a human being that the religion claims is the founding cause? I think we established to some reasonable degree that most 'personality cult' type major world religions do have a figure that is considered historical at their core and therefore postulating one at the heart of Christianity is far from controversial?
Or do you still contend that most major world religions with such a foundational figure are discussing fictional characters?
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 468 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 3:19 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 478 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:42 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 494 of 560 (620937)
06-21-2011 6:31 PM
Reply to: Message 478 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 4:42 PM


Re: foundations
When did we establish that? Out of the cherry-picked five you presented, two-and-a-half were based on fictional characters. To that I add the cargo cults of John Frum and the narcotics cult of Jesus Malverde, and that's 4.5 to 2.5 out of all the religions put forth for consideration. Religions based on real figures are a minority, not a majority.
If we include the ones by caffiene (Message 448) the score is a little different. Feel free to examine the major world religions that propose a historical founder, and tally up the score yourself. John Frum and Jesus Malverde are hardly major world religions. But ....
No, I would disagree. I would say that it is an extraordinary claim, based on the characteristics and qualities of religion.
To continue to claim that it is extraodinary for a person to be at the centre of a religion about a person pretty much ends the discussion I think.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 478 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 4:42 PM crashfrog has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 500 by crashfrog, posted 06-21-2011 7:09 PM Modulous has replied

Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 502 of 560 (620948)
06-21-2011 7:18 PM
Reply to: Message 500 by crashfrog
06-21-2011 7:09 PM


Re: foundations
Er, wait. You're still misunderstanding the claim. How could I claim that any real-world religion had a fictitious founder? Who started the religion, after all, if the founder didn't exist?
The claim is that the central figure of most world religions is a fictional person, and that's completely accurate, even if you don't grant me Jesus (which I wouldn't expect you to.)
So tally them up, show me that it is true that the central figure of most major world religions (that claim an individual central figure) is fictional.
Again you've misunderstood the claim.
Then I will ask you the question again, and this time you can answer it properly.
Would you agree that it is not an extraordinary claim that the founding cause of a major world religion is a human being that the religion claims is the founding cause?
The last time you disagreed, implying that you think it is an extraordinary claim.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

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