The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Ben C. Smith
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 9:10 am to Ben,
So I am wondering whether my pet theory, which happens to be that Christianity as we find it in Paul and several other early writings knew nothing of an historical Jesus, conforms to the gospel-Acts-Eusebian model after all....
What is your definition of a historical Jesus? A minimal human Jesus who existed in the near past (relative to Paul), or the Jesus of the gospels? or something else?
Do you think:
a) Paul was totally silent about that minimal Jesus?
This is no more than a suspicion so far, one which I am trying to flesh out to some extent. I have made arguments before that certain Pauline passages which seem to point to a minimal Jesus of the kind you are writing about are actually interpolations. You know the passages of which I speak, since we have either debated them or agreed on them. This makes me wonder whether other passages, ones not as clear, might not also be interpolations, thus leaving Paul bereft of any statement which might reasonably be construed as indicating a minimal historical Jesus. If this is so, then the option presents itself which I presented on that thread about the mythicohistorical Christ: the only things remaining to tie a minimal historical Jesus to Paul's Jesus Christ is the name Jesus and the mode of execution, and this makes me wonder a bit.

That is as far as I have gotten so far in this direction. I have no proof, no bang-dead argument as yet. It is all just a notion so far.
b) If no, Paul did not know more about that Jesus other than what he wrote about him?
c) Other epistles might have been silent about any historical Jesus, but does that mean their authors rejected any historical Jesus?

Cordially, Bernard
Silence is part of the (potential) argument, of course, but there is more to it than that, as I have argued elsewhere.
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outhouse
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 10:13 amHistorians are also free to indulge in hypotheses which would be ruled out of court before they even got off the ground
.
Agreed. I still have not found one that can recreate the actual origins of Christianity describing the historical jesus without over attributing historicity.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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neilgodfrey wrote: Mon Sep 11, 2017 5:08 pm But it's a lie I just made up,
Typical, when not being able to refute a credible hypothesis.

but you have to believe it because it is plausible.
There are some historical events that are beyond plausible and to the point of certainty. Some remain plausible.

Baptism and crucifixion are certainties on this topic. Whether you like it or not jesus is a historical figure, the only CREDIBLE thing to debate is how historical can details be added and remain credible.


John the Baptist is a historical character and so is Paul who was a contemporary figure writing just a short time after said events you question. Writing so close witnesses could have refuted him.

Is it plausible someone took over Johns movement after his murder?? 100% that someone kept that movement alive.

100% plausible someone was crucified during Passover who was martyred.

100% plausible Hellenist wanted to divorce cultural Judaism, accelerated by the fall of the temple after Zealots also known as Galileans started the war.

Fact, no one has created a mythical figure and deified him and placed this recently living man in front of hundreds of thousands of people, while the people were still alive who could have refuted it. To think this a all a lie takes a special kind of tinfoil hat.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:16 pm Heck, even the birth certificate could be forged or even in error, so the birth date is also a purported fact, though perhaps less dubious than the brother's statement.
Most basic "manuals" for budding professional historians discuss this possibility. It comes under examining the source documents to test for authenticity, provenance, errors, etc. There's nothing unusual about forgeries or errors in official documents.
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:16 pm
Please give examples from real life if you think I am all at sea here.
If I, as an historian who aspires to be a good one, think that Nero really did slay his own mother, should I wait before publishing until I have proof enough to convict him of matricide in a court of law, or does the standard of historical evidence fall short of the legal standard?
Well I read lots of historical works where the historian simply tells the reader of the ambiguity or uncertainty that arises in the sources. No one is obliged to just decide for themselves on a whim which version is true; where there is doubt or debate, historians that I read tell readers there is doubt or debate. If they have a preference for one side they explain the arguments.

I am a bit confused by these objections. Does anyone really believe historians just set out to tell a story for the sake of it. I am talking about serious professionals. Not popular hacks.

Even Herodotus did as much. Where there were varying accounts he would give them all and then present his own reasons for preferring one over the other, still allowing readers to differ if they so chose.

(The irony with Herodotus is that he may well have been merely pretending to sound like a serious reporter by concocting fictitious alternatives.)
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

Post by Bernard Muller »

to Neil,
How could I express the point in a strictly neutral way, Bernard?
Very easily: "the shit debate of mythicism versus historicism"
or "mythicism versus historicism (both being shit)"
My point is that I believe we need to work with the Jesus we have, the Jesus on the pages of the texts, the textual Jesus. We cannot deny that Jesus.
But the textual Jesus appears also as a human minimal Jesus in the Pauline epistles and in 'Hebrews'. And in the gospels, even as not minimal, the Jesus here is also human from birth to death.
We cannot deny that part of the textual Jesus either.
That is the Jesus we need to explain. He is the only one a historian has to work with.
Historians used texts and other things (if available), like archeology, in order to deduce history.
If texts are only available, these historians do not stop at studying the texts or a character according to the texts: historians are after history, they have to go deeper and beyond these texts, with various degree of confidence, because the available data might be far from perfect and complete.
These texts can go from valid and accurate sources of information to obstacles full of biases & misinformation (making a search for history quasi-impossible).
But they can contain both extreme. Only an extensive analysis on the ensemble of texts available can determine what is valid information & what is junk in each text (which is, BTW, what I did).
The overall result from the non-junk elements has to be a (very) plausible reconstruction of history. If that result is not achieved, that means the deduced history is wrong or the texts are so corrupted it cannot be done.
Jesus is not found behind the text. The text is not a clear glass to look through. He is found, rather, in the mosaic of the text and that's where he needs to be explained and understood.
Of course. But these texts, even put together, are not fully able to explain & understand any historical Jesus, in order to make a portrait of him. The text is not clear glass, but there is no reason to think it is entirely opaque.
But what is far more important for me in what events are true (and why) and during Jesus' last year of his life. A minimal Jesus by himself could not, of course, start Christianity, but events, some happening to him, some outside, did. That's what I found anyway.

I am guessing that according to the sketch you presented, that the literary approach, as you would practice it, can be used to eliminate any HJ, by throwing doubts where historicity is implied and finding way to reject the gospels as 100% fiction. What will be left of course is the heavenly Jesus.

But I think the literary approach is far from being foolproof. Extensive studies of these texts can bring (and already did bring) very different conclusions, more so in the area of their nature, provenance and author identity, because these are not identified in the texts with clear-cut evidence. However, I do not think we need to know all of that. As seen through their texts, the motives and biases, sometimes the location & gender & initial religion, are enough to set criteria for the critical analysis of their writings.

Cordially, Bernard
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

Post by neilgodfrey »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 11:18 pm
Again, does my recent hypothesis/suggestion (to wit, that Paul and other early Christians had no knowledge of any historical Jesus) fit into what you are calling the gospel-Acts-Eusebian model?

(This relates to what you wrote here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3346&start=410#p74309.)
The standard model that I understand to be dominating the field is that Christianity had a beginning point with the apostles who went out preaching and converting the world, with subgroups breaking off in various factions along the way, either as a result of outside or inside challenges. The apostle who looms largest, of course, is Paul. I think that's the fundamental story of Acts and Eusebius and most histories of Christian origins.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 10:13 am
From what I understand, this kind of dive-in reasoning, meant simply to take parsimonious account of all the available evidence, has no place in a criminal trial, but is much more at home in a "free inquiry" situation in which a person's life does not hang in the balance.
We are addressing two different concepts in this thread. History is understood as explanatory or descriptive narrative. But there is also the understanding of history as getting basic facts right.

Court trials etc are of course different in many respects from historical research. Though there is one case where the two did come very close, and that was the Holocaust Denial trial of David Irving (more correctly the trial brought by Irving against Deborah Lipstadt.)

The basic principles of determining "raw facts" are the same in both and in probably most areas of life. Independent corroboration looms large. Provenance is a word that covers a wealth of "data" and it is also high on the list of importance.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm
But I think the literary approach is far from being foolproof.
I don't know of any foolproof methods.

Not even contemporary independent corroboration is foolproof. But it is a higher standard than relying upon religious texts written twenty, forty or more years after the narrative setting.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm
My point is that I believe we need to work with the Jesus we have, the Jesus on the pages of the texts, the textual Jesus. . . . That is the Jesus we need to explain. He is the only one a historian has to work with.
Historians used texts and other things (if available), like archeology, in order to deduce history.
If texts are only available, these historians do not stop at studying the texts or a character according to the texts: historians are after history, they have to go deeper and beyond these texts,
That is where we differ, Bernard. My point about the textual Jesus is that we cannot go beyond that. That little diagram of McGrath's graphically declaring that the historian needs to go beyond the texts is flawed. It is what sets biblical studies "historians" apart from historians in other fields. If historians of Julius Caesar studied "the historical Julius Caesar" in the sources the same way biblical scholars studied the historical Jesus in the sources they'd be considered crazy.
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Re: The best case for Jesus's historicity: Mark Craig

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neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:17 pmMy point is that I believe we need to work with the Jesus we have, the Jesus on the pages of the texts, the textual Jesus. We cannot deny that Jesus.That is the Jesus we need to explain.
Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm But the textual Jesus appears also as a human minimal Jesus in the Pauline epistles and in 'Hebrews'. And in the gospels, even as not minimal, the Jesus here is also human from birth to death.
A 'textual Jesus' appearing as a human Jesus does not mean 'the textual Jesus' is based on a real, existing human Jesus

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm We cannot deny that part of the textual Jesus either.
Yes we can

neilgodfrey wrote: Thu Sep 14, 2017 2:17 pm [The textual Jesus] is the Jesus we need to explain. He is the only one a historian has to work with.
Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm Historians used texts and other things (if available), like archeology, in order to deduce history.
Yes, they do. They use art, objects, furniture, etc. There are none of these things that a definitively Christian until the fourth century.

Bernard Muller wrote: Fri Sep 15, 2017 4:32 pm If texts are only available, these historians do not stop at studying the texts or a character according to the texts: historians are after history, they have to go deeper and beyond these texts, with various degree of confidence, because the available data might be far from perfect and complete.

These texts can go from valid and accurate sources of information to obstacles full of biases & misinformation (making a search for history quasi-impossible).
The key is other texts. Other contemporaneous texts, and subsequent texts.

The early Church Fathers show a lack of knowledge of a historical Jesus.
Last edited by MrMacSon on Fri Sep 15, 2017 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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