How to indicate speculative relations?

Jamey,

I appreciate your thoughts on faith. It helps keep the discussion balanced.

I'm not much of a believer myself, nor much of non-believer. That seems to mean I annoy both sides equally ;)

Technically, I'm a Transcendentalist but no one ever knows what that means. Think Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman.

Jamey,

The answer to your question about the Tanakh is that there is a lot disagreement among experts.

The majority opinion seems to be that Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings were composed or compiled about the time of King Josiah and his reforms. Then they were probably re-worked during the Exile. The general outline of history and the genealogies might be reliable back to about the time of King David, but maybe not quite that early.

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers were not written by Moses, despite the legend. Along with Chronicles they were probably composed or compiled right after the Exile. They are probably just collections of old stories and legends. Probably just about everything that could be found because they often contain two different versions of the same story. Some of them might be reliable. Most of them probably aren't.

The post-Exilic works also seem to contain Persian and Babylonian material, including some that suggests Jewish monotheism was greatly influenced by Zoroastrianism.

Shew, I’m really enjoying the discussion. This era (‘aeon’ :-)) of history / philosophy fascinates me. Thank you for having it.

Justin said: “I am pointing out that the argument has to be expanded to include a second element: The gospels (1) are a literary redaction (2) of material about a mythical Jesus.”
Yes, I suppose that may be valuable to point out, but I was assuming it was given. If the gospel biographies are redactions of the ‘Old Testament ‘ prophecies, then the person they describe is, by definition, a fiction / mythological creation. From whose mind he might have sprung in all his a priori glory is a different point altogether (albeit , the more interesting point from the perspective of Harald’s storyteller argument).

On the references to tautologies above, and Alex’s not taking the church’s word on the validity of the gospels – I’m also presuming that as given. (The great Origen’s Platonic influence on Christianity as the insight of a literary and philosophical genius, is a discussion I’d love to have, but it doesn’t pertain to establishing the veracity of the biographical facts of Jesus’ life). I’m assuming that all subsequent redactions are moot; and we’re only talking about the evidence for the truth of the biographical details from Jesus’ closest contemporaries: the gospel writers / Paul’s letters/ 2 references in Josephus. And I’m simply assuming that historians are correct in interpreting the data from the papyrii Harald references, amongst other sources, to say that the earliest possible first hand account of Jesus’ biography comes from at least 50 years after him; and more likely from 100 + years after him. (The crossover in facts in the synoptic gospels is not assumed to be evidence of anything to be remarked upon except a previous source text – also showing no evidence of being older than Paul’s letters.)

So, I’m seeing the question of whether or not Jesus’ biographers (those that would be considered historically valid texts– not those that postdate these versions) are truthful, as a linear – not a circular – continuum of possible conclusions:
On the one extreme (eg far left) of possible conclusions o this continuum: The gospel/ Pauline version of a supernatural reincarnating person is proved by the source documentation ie there is such a thing as an anthropomorphic god etc
On the other extreme (eg far right): The gospel/ Pauline version of a supernatural reincarnating person is not proved by the source documentation ie he is a fictional creation of his biographers

To Justin, I am saying: which of these two extremes is a crackpot theory from an analysis of the data using the scientific method? You’re suggesting it’s the second, from a milieu that assumes the first is true - I’m pointing out that anybody saying that isn’t analysing any of the data in a way that can be considered scientifically objective.

Harald said "Myself, I have a somewhat non-scholarly position ... I think that people inventing things out of whole cloth would write better drama; the fact that they didn't indicates to me that they were somewhat limited in how much they could embellish a story that was already known in general outline to their contemporaries."

Yes, but the existence of an antecendant plotline to the synoptic gospels (eg the theorised Q text) is not proof of it's being a first hand account. The closest we get to this is some of Paul’s letters, and he appears to know very little about Jesus’ biographical details.

The erratic plotline that the gospels use to ensure they cover the fullfillment of any and all messianic prophecies that might exist in the Hebrew sacred texts, doesn't suggest to me real life haphazard plotline from which they cannot deviate, but a cynically crafted propaganda text to be used as a proselytizing instrument.
And why should we assume that it is impossible that such a cynical stance could not create a protagonist too?

(This, notwithstanding the degree to which the audience of the writings of the time and for the next couple of hundred years elicited mythology as history. The question here is the degree to which 21st biblical exegisists aren't taking that into account.)

Which, believe it or not, is the shortest way I could figure out to say that I think the question of whether the plotline (ie Jesus' existence) can be dis/proved as historical, is not tautologically dependent on the answer to the question 'who was the original author?'

On this first, Justin and I disagree that there is a scientifically objective possibility that the plotline, & therefore its protagonist, are entirely fictional. I think that, of either extreme, the crackpot side of this debate is the side that presumes that the plotline is true, & therefore Jesus was a supernatural being.
In sympathy with Harald's analogy to the Scandinavian sagas: I'd say that it is not a crackpot idea to conclude that Ragnar Lodbrok is entirely made up. It is a definite scholarly possibility, based on the facts available. (I happen to be of the 'where there's smoke, there's fire' mindset on this & on Jesus, but that's beside the point I'm trying to make.) If somebody suggested we believe Ragnar was supernatural - I'd say that's the crackpot idea.

But the second ‘storyteller’ question is the more interesting, to my mind - as is Justin's description of the Platonic aspects of Christianity that are missing from the Hebrew texts.

Who is the author of this abrupt application of the Hellenist worldview to the Jewish teleology? Who is the redactor? Is it Paul? Is it Q? Is it a person, Jesus?

Most interesting (although most unlikely, to my mind) is if it's the person, Jesus. Could it have been one man who deliberately shaped events in his life to fulfil the messianic prophecies of a saviour king/prophet in Judaism? And then, how does he get from this purely literal embodiment of messiah, to understanding and advertising himself as a symbolic sacrificial lamb required by a god, of whom he is already a part?
This paradigm shift adds a dimension of abstract complexity to religious representation that the old Hebrew texts lack almost entirely – not unlike the Psych labelled stages of cognitive development from concrete to formal operational (ie literal to abstract thinking). (Not necessarily to great literary benefit in my opinion. Very little writing in the New Testament has the literary sophistication or polish of much of the Hebrew texts. As Harald points out – the gospels are bumbling; and if the Psych label analogy is taken to its conclusion, the Revelation of John becomes the psychotic break of Christianity, instated by the overdetermination of the symbolic :-))

But the story of how a person Jesus/Paul/Q was so in tune with the zeitgeist of his/her era - that they created an entirely new religion that retained meaning for two thousand years. Now that's a story worth investigating :-)

Sharon, one place I can sympathize -- it takes a lot of writing to capture even a simple idea in this area ;)

I think the simplest way I can put my argument is that saying we can take it as a given that a written text presupposes the ideas in it were in someone's mind misses the point. It's an a priori argument. If the Jesus in the texts could be either Historical or Mythical, you need to go outside the texts for the answer. Analyzing the texts is just mental masturbation. You'll have a lot of fun, and you'll have shown how Jesus could be Mythological, but you won't have proved anything or even made the case more likely or less likely.

Do you see why this is true? If you go in with a theory that the text is either literary or historical, it's not possible to break out of your analytic framework. You need evidence outside the text for that, or else all you're doing is finding evidence that the theory you already have can be supported by the text.

You said, "the crackpot side of this debate is the side that presumes that the plotline is true".

I would say that's an overreach from the evidence. The earliest evidence we have about Jesus are the letters of Paul. Although he normally talks about Jesus in supernatural terms he also makes it clear he thinks of Jesus as having been a real person. For example, "who as to his earthly life[a] was a descendant of David" (Romans 1:3, 55-58 CE).

Here is Paul, a younger contemporary of Jesus, making it clear within 20 some years of Jesus' lifetime saying explicitly that he sees Jesus as a real person. Now, it's possible this is just part of Paul's myth making. No way to prove it isn't, but also no way to prove it is. As I've said before, it's impossible to break out of an analytic box if you're confined to the text.

Then too, we have Josephus saying that James was "the brother of Jesus who is called Christ." (Antiquities, 20.9.1, 93-94 CE). Here we have a source external to the texts you're analyzing, although it's late. Woefully late, but perhaps still reliable because Josephus was an historian and probably received information not just from Christians but also from non-Christian Jews.

I'm not arguing that these two citations prove Jesus was historical. But they are enough to make the idea of a Historical Jesus most certainly not a crackpot theory. It's more direct evidence than Mythical Jesus has.

More later.

:-) middle of the night here! We are talking at cross purposes somewhat - or I'm just half asleep :-)
I'm at pains to point out that the idea that Jesus might have been entirely made up is not a crackpot research avenue, because you have dismissed it as such. The crackpot research avenue is the idea that he was a supernatural entity- even if it remains the mainstream one. By pointing this out, I'm sticking up for an historical method based in research not faith; and not expounding my own conclusions. )

Outside the text there is nothing to definitely prove Jesus' existence - hence my point that it is not difficult to make a non crackpot argument for his being a fiction. ( This isn't the argument I would make, though. I'm simply defending the space in which it could be made without being considered unscientific. )

Inside the text, internal contradictions and impossible claims can be used to discredit it's historicity. This is not mental masturbation - it's reality testing of the truthfulness of the authors. The truth claims made by the authors about the supernatural properties of their protagonist are manifestly impossible- ie not historical fact. We don't have to go outside the text of a Superman comic to prove it isn't real. And yet mainstream researchers whose starting point is that this is a fact , are not being described by you as crackpots. I'm not saying that the possibility that Jesus existed as a person is not valid (This is, of course, what I do think - just as you do). I'm saying that the texts exist to convince us that he was a supernatural person. Their agenda is patently untruthful. And History does not find him as a documented person. (Josephus disputed reference to a brother of James isn't proof of much). The balance of probability isn't tipped in favour of his historical existence by either of these two things. Unless your belief system needs it to be.

Talking at cross purposes? Maybe. I don't think so, though. I think we have a genuine methodological disagreement.

I am not saying the idea of Myth Jesus is a crackpot theory. You keep making this accusation and I keep telling you that's not what I said.

I said that you need to go outside. As long as the only evidence outside the texts was crackpot evidence, then Jesus as a myth was a crackpot idea. As soon as you (or anyone) pulls in real evidence outside the texts, then it's not a crackpot idea any longer.

The shaky evidence of Paul and Josephus is still, all in all, better direct evidence than the zero direct evidence we have for Mythical Jesus.

And -- let's be clear -- the debate around the passage in Josephus normally accepts that he did write something about James as brother of "a certain Jesus", What is disputed is not (usually) the reference itself, but to the language of it. That is, did he really say "who is called Christ"? Or is this a later re-working of a passage that might have said something closer to "who Christians call Christ"?

I think it's entirely fair to say the direct evidence is open to debate. But once you open that debate you need to have something more than just the text. It's not good enough to say this story is impossible. Or that reference to a rather forced prophecy must have been made up. You need good indirect evidence. If you don't, you're just developing a subjective, post-modern trope of your own on themes you've found.

I'm very glad you brought up Ragnar Lothbrok. In my opinion the analogy is almost perfect.

I see the extremes of Jesus scholarship as being (1) everything the gospels say about Jesus is true (an extreme Historical Jesus), and (2) everything the gospels say about Jesus is a pious literary invention (an extreme Mythical Jesus).

The majority of modern scholars take a more centrist view, and so do I. Mythical elements have probably been added to the life of an historical Jesus. Which of the elements are mythical and how much has been manipulated is a matter for debate.

This is an exact parallel to what most modern scholars think about Ragnar Lothbrok. He probably has a historical core as father of the men who led the Great Heathen Army that invaded England in 865. Stories that were originally attached to other men became attached to him, and those stories grew in the telling until it reached a point that it can't all be true. There are too many contradictions.

In the same way, it's easy and reasonable to posit a historical Jesus who was an itinerant Jewish preacher, probably with a Messianic message. Probably he preached a message that was different from the Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes but had some commonalities with each of them. He was dangerous to Rome and to the Jewish authorities, so he was executed. After his death, the authorities tried to root out his followers. In the course of that, Paul, who might already have followed some school of Hellenist Jewish syncretism had a visionary experience where he experienced Jesus as an incarnation of the the neoplatonic Demiurge.

That whole idea is speculative, but it's well within the bounds of the evidence. It's plausible and it easily explains the variety of literature, both canonical and non-canonical that erupted in the next 200 years. Jesus would be both historical and mythical. Just like Ragnar Lothbrok.

Personally, I incline to this view without getting hung up on the exact narrative. The pieces that are based only on faith (either way) don't much interest me. I'll leave that part to people who think a definite opinion is necessary. I put them in the same category with my "cousin" Mormon mystic Analee Skarin who supposedly ascended into heaven in her physical body or another "cousin" Esther Hicks who channels an entity named Abraham who wants us all to be happy and prosperous. Fine with me either way ;)

I can't say that a supernatural entity or phenomena always is equivalent with idiocy, everything depends on the context, sometimes it can be and sometimes we just lack the ability to fully understand. We want things to be verifiable, logical and make sense with a rational reasonable explanation, but sometimes there aren't just any good explanations to certain events, events that can't be repeated, commanded, controlled or examined, it's just impossible to grip when certain events truly defied the laws of nature.

This kind of events have likely coexisted with us as long as humans have existed and we can certainly trace it back as long as people have been able to write, we haven't invented true supernatural phenomenon, there's no need for that. Some of us have been lucky, or maybe not, to witness phenomena by our own eyes, it doesn't make it easier to explain, but it's enough to make us understand that not everything can be explained. The only real crackpot idea is to believe that events that can't be explained are not true.

This is the crosspurpose, I think, Justin:

Ulf said: "Justin, I think it wasn't until the beginning of 1900's some few academics started to question the historical authenticity of Jesus, at least in the western world.

Justin Swanström C replied 12/1/2017 at 2:53 AM
"Ulf, it's a fascinating question. I don't know what to think. I'm not afraid to have my beliefs challenged, but I grew up in a world where that was just a crackpot idea."

I'm saying that that says more about the world you grew up in, than the crackpottedness of that idea, in terms of the scientific method.

Methodologically, you're demanding from me a proof of an absence - of a never existence. The onus, however, is on you to prove the presence of something you believe in.
I'm saying that if you can't prove its presence / physical existence- then one of the valid conclusions is that it may never have physically existed.

Part of the problem is the slippage between the words myth and fiction - where you are requiring me to prove the positive presence of Jesus as an extant mythology upon which the texts draw, in order to prove the hypothesis that he might be a fictional lie.

I am saying that his absence from the historical record at the time, coupled with the fact that his biographers are obviously lying about substantial details, and that they have a motive to do so - is far more than adequate reason for the scientific method to conclude that he very well may not have existed. And, for exactly the same reasons, there are researchers who propose that Ragnar may well have not existed.

Sharon, you're grasping at straws.

You said, "I'm saying that that says more about the world you grew up in, than the crackpottedness of that idea, in terms of the scientific method."

No, in fact it doesn't. But it says a lot about my age. I grew up at a time when Mythical Jesus was very much a crackpot idea, rejected by the vast majority of scholars as such.

But the world changes. New ideas emerge. New proofs. New arguments. I'm keeping up, but I don't pretend the standards of the past were the same as the present.

Is 'subjective postmodern trope' a synonym for crackpot? :-)

Sharon, and you said, "you're demanding from me a proof of an absence"

No, no, no. Why is this so difficult??

I'm pointing out that you're embracing a methodology that can never get beyond the problem of needing a negative proof without being able to produce one.

At bottom, what you are doing is toting up all the evidences in favor of historicity and saying "these are fake, they've been invented or manipulated". Then toting up all the evidences in favor of mythicism and saying "these must be good, no manipulation here".

Historicists do the same in reverse.

It doesn't work for either side. The result is highly subjective. Anyone who chooses to work this way is never going to do any more than to convince themselves that they've chosen the right side.

I don't understand how I'm grasping at straws by describing the scientific method to you.

'Zero evidence for mythical Jesus' isn't proof of the existence of the biblical Jesus.
There are only second hand accounts where you'd expect first hand ones if his biographers are to be believed. And the second hand accounts are neither disinterested nor truthful about physical reality. They require a belief in the Christian mythology to be regarded as historical.

The Josephus reference is contestable as proof of the existence of biblical Jesus because Josephus references numbers of other Jesuses in his text. Jesus is a common name of the time. If you dispute the 'Christ' wording, you dispute the reference to the biblical Jesus.

I haven't offered a single proof of mythicism. That's my point.

Is 'subjective postmodern trope' a synonym for crackpot?

Nope.

But it does reflect my own bias that textual interpretation often involves projecting an inner landscape onto an innocent text ;)

> I don't understand how I'm grasping at straws by describing the scientific method to you.

That's not where I said you're grasping at straws. Yes, you're pointlessly lecturing me about the scientific method (which I understand perfectly well).

But, you've latched onto my statement that there was a time when mythicism was a crackpot idea. No matter what I say, you seem hellbent on locating that statement in 2017 and in using it to attack me personally rather than responding to my arguments.

I repeat -- when I was a kid, a teenager, a young college student -- vast ages ago -- the idea that Jesus is a myth was a crackpot idea. It was held, developed, and propounded by people who did not have enough information to make a good case. In fact, it was often developed along lines that scholars knew to be spurious.

Reading that material now, I always think "Oh you poor dear. It was such brave try. Maybe if you had put in just a little more effort." Or sometimes, "Ooooo look. You almost had something. Too bad you swerved aside there."

There is nothing in the scientific method that requires someone to coo over old material that might have been nice in its day but doesn't make the cut now. So too, there is nothing that requires someone to coo over material that didn't make the cut even in its own day.

I'm going to back up a little here, as you're feeling personally attacked, and that's not what I'm doing. I think this is my T speaking to your F:-)

I'm making an entirely Modernist argument for insufficient facts.

I take your point that you were referencing the Jesus mythologists of our youth as tending towards crackpot theories, not suggesting that the idea that Jesus may never have existed is crackpot.

"textual interpretation often involves projecting an inner landscape onto an innocent text" - that is the definition of 'interpretation'.
For this reason, there are also no innocent texts :-)

To my mind, Biblical Jesus (miracles and all), Historical Jesus (real person, but leave out the miracles please) and Mythical Jesus (the story is the story and nothing but the story) are three distinct theory families.
All of them seem to have family members that it's easy to dismiss as "crackpot".

What Richard Carrier has done that no mythicist before him was able to do is show a clear path for the origin of a Mythical Jesus. It's not that Carrier found new material, but that the experts who dealt with it before him did not (as far as I can see) notice the mythicist potential.

Here's what I think is his best argument, in a nutshell.

Philo of Alexandria (about 25 BCE – c. 50 CE) was an Alexandrian Jew, and the foremost Greco-Jewish philosopher. His life's work was syncretizing Greek and Jewish thought.

Philo follows the usual Platonic system with an Absolute (G-d) and a Demiurge but he shifts it just a bit. Instead of having the Demiurge as creator, he has the Demiurge (which he calls the Logos) as the agent of creation.

"For nothing mortal can be made in the likeness of the Most High One and Father of the Universe, but only in that of the second God who is his Logos" (Philo, Questions on Genesis, 11.62)

For Philo, the High Priest on earth is a reflection of the Logos.

"For there are, as is evident, two temples of God: one of them this universe in which there is also as high priest his Firstborn, the Divine Logos, and the other the rational soul, whose priest is the real man" (On Dreams, 1.215).

Then there is a passage in Zechariah where he has a vision that gives him G-d's instructions for the restoring the the Temple and its priesthood.

"Take the silver and gold [from the exiles] and make a crown, and set it on the head of the high priest, Joshua son of Jozadak (Yeshua son of Yehozadak). Tell him this is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Here is the man whose name is the Branch, and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the Lord. It is he who will build the temple of the Lord, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne." (Zechariah 6:11-13)

Philo's handling of this passage is a bit problematic because of differences between the Hebrew text and the Greek translation he is using, but he seems to find a Messianic message in it, or at least a proof about the nature of the universe.

"I have also heard of one of the companions of Moses having uttered such a speech as this: "Behold, a man whose name is the East!" (Zechariah 6:12.} A very novel appellation indeed, if you consider it as spoken of a man who is compounded of body and soul; but if you look upon it as applied to that incorporeal being who in no respect differs from the divine image, you will then agree that the name of the east has been given to him with great felicity. For the Father of the universe has caused him to spring up as the eldest son, whom, in another passage, he calls the firstborn; and he who is thus born, imitating the ways of his father, has formed such and such species, looking to his archetypal patterns." (Philo of Alexandria, Confusion of Tongues, 14.62-63).

In other words, Philo seems to be saying that this man whose name is East (or Rising or Branch, depending on the translation) in Zechariah 6:12, is the same person as the Logos and (perhaps) the High Priest Joshua and his associates are "men symbolic of things to come" and when G-d brings his servant, the Branch, he "will remove the sin of this land in a single day." (Zechariah 3:8).

It takes a bit of close reading to get the point here. Carrier believes that Philo reinterpreted this passage to make the High Priest Joshua the same as the Branch. That seems plausible considering Philo's idea that the High Priest is the earthly reflection of the Logos, but I don't think it's a necessary part of the argument.

What I find most interesting about this type of analysis is that it breaks out of the box of textual criticism. Philo's dates overlap both Jesus and Paul. It is very plausible that Paul, working as an agent for the Saducees (Hellenized Jews) who controlled the Temple, was himself a Hellenized Jew and perhaps a follower of Philo's system.

And here we have Philo talking about a Logos, or second G-d, for whom the high priest is a type, and apparently with Messianic overtones. Moreover, it's a straight short, although maybe a bit speculative, to link this Logos with the name Jesus (Joshua).

Sharon,

T vs F?

Read again: "I'm saying that that says more about the world you grew up in"

In what way is that not a personal remark?

Harald,

Here are your three distinct theory families, straight from Carrier. Look at the 2nd slide:

http://www.richardcarrier.info/Historicity_of_Jesus.pdf

I hadn't intended to post this because it's a general presentation and doesn't do much to highlight the real strengths of his theory, but since you mention it ...

Quickly- Justin, the world you grew up in is the world I grew up in. The you is there because you made the statement, not as a personal insult. I know that you know that my background upbringing is stronglyChristian. You can't have forgotten that my grandfather was a methodist minister and I married from within the church at 19 because I believed the Christian mythology about sex.

But Philo doesn't ever mention Jesus. (It's not that plausible that his code word for a real person, and a contemporary at that, was 'logos').

So does Carrier assume that Paul and the gospel writers have Philo as an antecedent? Except they don't mention him either.

Sharon, our lived experiences of that world were very different. Haven't we had this conversation before?

My parents believed in having perfect lives. The perfect house, the perfect yard, expensive cars and clothes, the right clubs. Church was part of that. The right church. We went every Sunday, but no one ever suggested we were supposed to believe it.

I was well into my 20s before I discovered there are people in the world who take religion seriously or that it is possible to be scarred by it.

My poor mother would be horrified if she thought I know this much about religion. She thinks I do innocent things like knowing her grandmother's birthday was born March 22 or knowing when Mercury is retrograde.

:-)