Sorry for the slow response. I'm trying to take my time with this; my messages to Theo took a bit of research and were pretty time consuming. Also I spent the weekend being distracted by ducks. Special ducks. Rare
ducks. They were very nice.
And what draws someone to studying Jesus? Disbelief that he ever lived? Perhaps for a very few. The vast, vast majority of Jesus scholars began their studies already believing he was real.
This doesn't explain why non-Christian scholars are of the same opinion. Someone like Ehrman, he's a tenured professor and best selling author. He's in a position to say what the hell he likes. If he decided that the evidence supported mythicism he could say so and there would be nothing anyone could do about it. He is a prominent example of someone who has thrown off his Christian biases in dozens of respects. He started out as a believing Christian remember. He had complete faith in the accuracy and consistency of the Bible. He got past that. I don't see why scholars like him would have any special trouble in circumnavigating this particular bias.
But then is there any meaningful difference between an obscure mystic bearing no resemblance to the Christ of faith and no mystic at all?
Culturally no, but for historians, that's all the difference in the world.
Look, if you don't think this is an important discussion, you're free to not engage with it. Personally, I think it's interesting.
I expect that anyone deserving of the title of scholar would say "I don't know" when they have no evidence
But that's not the case. No matter how many times it is repeated, the charge of "no evidence" is false. The Epistles are evidence. The Gospels are evidence. Acts is evidence. Tacitus is evidence. Jospehus is evidence.
when mere words on a page are labeled evidence,
That is standard practice in historical studies. Documentary sources are evidence. If not, well, that's it for the study of history, might as well pack up shop, call it a day. I don't see this resistance to documentary sources around any issue other than Jesus mythicism. The use of documentary sources is standard and essential to much of what we know about the ancient world. The NT is a problematic source for sure, but to throw it out entirely is bizarre. I think that you (and others) are committing the Nirvana Fallacy here, usually phrased as letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You act as though any problem with a source means that it simply disappears and the claim of "no evidence" can be made. That's not how it works. Imperfect evidence evidence is still evidence. Imperfect evidence does not mean no evidence, that's just a rhetorical trick. You even seem to agree with this later on;
I'm merely holding them to the traditional standards for historical viewpoints: multiple cross-confirming evidence, which includes writings.
If writings can count as evidence then it is false to claim that we have no evidence. Saying that you don't find the evidence convincing is absolutely fine, you're entitled to your opinion, but claiming that there is no evidence is something else entirely and that is just not true.
expect that anyone deserving of the title of scholar would say "I don't know" when they have no evidence
Me too. They're no in that position though.
When there is unanimity about the historicity of Jesus in the absence of any evidence,
There isn't. There is evidence.
when mere words on a page are labeled evidence, when evidence includes speculations about what someone may or may not have made up, then that damns the entire field of study.
Well damn the whole of history then. Historical scholarship is argument based upon evidence. That is standard. History isn't a hard science. This isn't physics, we're not going to reach a conclusion confirmed to 5 sigma certainty. This is humanities and a certain amount of speculation is, in the absence of time machines, necessary. All arguments should be founded in evidence, yes, of course. Speculation should be minimised, yes. But I don't think that it can or even should be extirpated from historical discourse, because that would leave us very little discourse at all. You could call it speculation or, somewhat less pejoratively, interpretation. Even archaeological evidence requires interpretation. It's a necessary part of historical scholarship.
And that's a very bad thing. Whether as scholars they advocate a Christ of faith or a Jesus of history, in matters of faith they all believe in the Christ of faith, and that influences their scholarship. Being a Christian believer should be disqualifying for studying the foundations of Christianity.
I agree that it's a bad thing. I think that as Christianity recedes we will see more and more neutral minded scholars on this issue. I think you're being overly harsh on Christian scholars though and making a big assumption that any Christian must be fatally biased here. I don't think that's fair. We've seen in discussions around evolution that there are plenty of Christian scientists who are capable of putting their Christian hat to one side whilst they don their scholar's cap. The same is true in textual criticism. There are Christian scholars who reject supernatural elements of the Bible. I've even seen cases where ostensible Christians deny the reality of the resurrection. Certainly it is not hard to find people who will admit that they do not have firm historical evidence as the basis for the resurrection, believing on faith alone.
I think that our perception may be coloured by the kind of Christians we get in here; fundamentalist, inflexible and reality denying. That sort of believer is not the typical Christian historian or textual scholar. Moderate Christianity is more typical. Fundamentalists and scholars are typically talking past each other. Most scholars have no interest in and are barely aware of the Lee Strobels and Ray Comforts of this world. I think that you are overstating this case and I think that the idea of "disqualifying" Christians from scholarship is an over-correction.
I might be misinterpreting this. Are you agreeing with me that the baptism may not be factual? That's one of the two things scholars apparently agree on.
Well, "may not be factual" applies to pretty much everything. We're not dealing in absolutes here.
I don't have any set opinion on the matter. The fact that we have independent attestation for John the Baptist does move the confidence level up a bit though.
But conclusions shouldn't be drawn simply because of our great inner need for answers.
No but a hypothesis with greater explanatory power is to be preferred over one with less explanatory power.
I'm repeating myself, but the dissatisfaction with being left to wonder cannot create evidence that doesn't exist.
And I'm repeating myself when I point out that evidence does exist.
We might not be connecting here. I meant that modern Mormon and Christian scholars are wrong in their conclusions, not ancient sources. True, the sources are at the root of the problem, but I wasn't talking about them.
Okay. It applies to both though. People are a mixture of wrong and right. Documents are typically a mixture of wrong and right. We should not commit the Nirvana Fallacy here. Just because some scholars hold errant beliefs does not mean that they are incapable of getting anything right and can be completely ignored. In the same vein, a documentary source can be reliable in some respects, unreliable in others. This is normal to the point of being universal.
You believe Paul had a religious vision but that religious visions aren't evidence.
You seem to be misreading my position here. Of course visions aren't evidence of real events. I never said they were. I was not arguing that Paul's vision is evidence of a risen Christ, of course I wasn't. I'm just pointing out that just because Paul is a pathetically poor witness to a risen Christ, that doesn't mean that we should dismiss everything he says. We dismiss Paul as a witness to the Resurrection because his account is dependent upon supernatural elements. That does not apply to his accounts of mundane events and regular people. Saying "visions aren't evidence" is fine, but that doesn't apply to Paul's meeting with James and Peter, which isn't anything to do with visions.
I believe that Paul, like modern evangelists, made it up. Not just the vision of the resurrection but a whole lot more, including possibly the existence of the Christian community in Jerusalem. "Come," he would preach to a crowd, "and join your brothers in Jerusalem who have experienced the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who having suffered the cross rose again to be by the side of God." And what would it matter that there wasn't really any Christian community a 10 days journey away on foot in Jerusalem.
That would work if Rome and Jerusalem were completely isolated, but that isn't the case. The writings in question are letters to people in other cities. Sending letters was perfectly possible at the time. There would have been plenty of travel between cities, merchants, soldiers, Roman officials, etc. The people Paul was writing to would have been in a position to catch Paul in the lie if he were fabricating such a visible entity as the Jerusalem church (of which we have independent attestation in Josephus and elsewhere). The opening passages of Galatians clearly imply that whoever Paul is writing to has already been in touch with that church. Paul doesn't like what they had to say about him, so he's putting the record straight (as he sees it). That context makes clear that a Christian community existed by the time of the Epistles. I don't think this is something Paul would be able to fake. True, we don't have the replies to Paul's letters (wouldn't that be fantastic! I would bloody love to see the replies! "Dear Paul, Please stop writing us. I repeat, this is a Wendy's"), but I think that such a flimsy lie would be called out. If there isn't a wider Christian community, who the hell is he writing to?
And the differences Paul had with the Jerusalem church? What is a protagonist without an antagonist? Paul was a fabricator, a teller of tales. He could craft a story.
He sure could. But I don't think that persuasive power would have been enough to convince people of a contemporaneous church which did not exist. I think that's far-fetched. I don't think that antagonist is the right characterisation of Paul's relationship with the other church leaders either. Frenemy perhaps? It looks more like rivalry than real enmity to me. I also think that if he was looking for an antagonist, Rome is right there.
But again, supernatural===false does not imply that plausible===true.
Never said it did. The possible must be the starting point, that's all.
Biblical scholars have been enveloped in the mist of mystical writings for so long that they've lost all sense of judgment about what constitutes true evidence
Easy to say, hard to demonstrate. I think that's a bit unfair. Not every Christian scholar is William Lane Craig.
All it means is that it's possible or believable. Only if we find actual cross-confirming evidence might it rise to the level of something that is likely true.
We have evidence. Tacitus and Josephus for starters.
Biblical scholarship does remind me of creationists who want special dispensations for their "evidence".
I see no special dispensations. Documentary evidence is accepted as evidence in historical studies. Documentary evidence is not only accepted in textual criticism, it is the entire focus of the field. I have no idea how textual critics in particular are supposed to spend their time if documentary evidence is off the table.
As for the comparison to creationism, I could talk about the various ways in which zealous internet mythicists remind me of creationists, but I think that's a rather fruitless endeavor. That comparison is a bit of a loaded one on this board. It's just going to degenerate into mud slinging.
Mutate and Survive
On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" ... I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question. - Charles Babbage
Dwise1 would agree with you.
™ Version 4.2
(1)
