How does the mythical Jesus thing hang together?

[Paul the Uncertain]

Neil (for the quote), gmx (for the issue at hand)

That's not complicated. It's fundamentally the same method used by crime investigators to solve crimes, by courts to decide guilt or innocence, by everyday folk to decide what is true and what is not out of all the things they hear.

You're probably right. Successful historians, no more than police, judges or everyday folk, probably don't seek to proportion belief to evidence, but rather pursue what they're paid to do. Successful historians apparently strive to construct useful and aesthetically pleasing models of possible pasts. There's nothing wrong with that, either. Newton's laws are useful and false, for example.

I bring that up not because I seek to engage you personally, but because I think that's the answer to the OP's question. Any particular "mythicist theory" is a useful and aesthetically pleasing model of a possible past, and a good one is arguably as consistent with the sparse evidence as any comparably specific Guild-certified model of Christian origins.

Assuming Bayesian scorekeeping and success in arguing for at least one such mythicist model, it would follow that it is seriously possible that a historical Jesus is false, that no single specific historical Jesus model stands "more likely than not" to be true, and that the credibility of the grand ensemble of historical Jesus hypotheses weighs up somewhere near to equipoise, at best.

That's not a bad return on investment for an exercise in hypothesis construction.

However, a competitive new specific model (mythicist or otherwise), will likely have used up all-or-nearly-all available evidence in order to build it. That leaves little or no available evidence to test the new model against older popular models (Guild-certified or otherwise). Deadlock will continue, pending new evidence, assuming all participants were and will continue to be rational in the required sense.

[neilgodfrey]

But the denial that the immaterial exists cannot be proved. Therefore when it is asserted it is sheer dogmatism

It's not about "proving" anything. It's about testing and falsifying and riding with what we have provisionally been able to establish and that works -- until we find new tests and falsifications lead us to new hypotheses.

Is there any way to test/falsify that Lucian of Samosata was a historical rather than a mythical person?

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lucian.html

Yes. The evidence indicates that Lucian of Samosata really did write the works attributed to him in those same works. Subsequent ancient scholars included him in their lists of ancient authors so presumably literary traditions supported his historicity, since the works produced by those ancient scholars (Eunapius, Photias, "Suidas") re of the kind that demonstrate an interest in preserving the historical information and independent corroboration supports their value as records of ancient sources.

If we had comparable evidence for Jesus -- quasi-biographical works written by Jesus and subsequent lists including the author Jesus alongside comparable authors like Philo, Josephus, Paul, etc -- there would very likely be no debate about his historicity.

(Your link takes us to a page that asks the question about the historicity of Peregrinus. Did you mean to ask if we can establish the historicity of Peregrinus?)

[neilgodfrey]

Unknown persons, reasons and audiences does suggest a lot of silence / absence of evidence, does it not? Yet somehow, by the fourth century, Christianity is the state religion of the Roman Empire, but we can't get much of a read on it before that point in time. I think silence is a fair description. You obviously disagree.

We are addressing two different types of silences, I think.

And yes, I can definitely agree that the gospel writers found inspiration for their narrative in the OT, but that doesn't contradict historicity (in my view). It is compatible with the traditional view of a historical Jesus, whose followers believed him to be the messiah, and subsequent generations sought to evidence that claim via fullfilment of the scriptures.

I see the OT as clear evidence for the source of episodes in Jesus' life. It's not really "silence" as to the origin of the story. Example, Matthew's nativity story comes from the story of Moses. That's clear.

But you are quite correct that that OT source of stories about Jesus does not prove he was nonhistorical and entirely made up. Correct.

The point, though, is that if all we have are stories that we can either trace to OT or other literary precedents or stories that can find no corroboration at all in independent contemporary sources then we have no reason to embrace the historicity of Jesus.

That does not mean Jesus had no historical existence, however. He might have. It's just that the only evidence we have cannot be corroborated in any way or it can be sourced to something other than historical events.

So the default position is that we have a literary and theological figure of Jesus. We simply cannot know on the basis of the above that Jesus was also historical. There is no unambiguous evidence to support this claim.

I can live with not knowing. I don't think the question matters too much because if Jesus' historical life and sayings really did have the historical impact of the power to change lives and history then I suspect we would find unambiguous evidence to that effect. Instead, we only find "faith-documents" without historical corroboration and stories derived from other fictions.

Maybe the historians are just unlucky in that the most interesting evidence has simply not survived. That's possible, too.

Neil, I am interested in your view of one of the other points / questions in the OP.

If the epistles are unaware of Jesus' life of earth, because it hasn't been invented yet, then who wrote the deutero-Pauline epistles and why? What was the purpose of pretending to be Paul in the pre-historical-Jesus/pre-Gospel era? Or are we saying that there was genuine Paul, then Gospels, then deutero-Paul, and deutero-Paul was so expertly forged as to resist the temptation to include "evidence" from the gospels?

I think from your other reply, I can infer that your answer is "we don't know and we have no way of knowing", but anyway...

We don't know and we have no way of knowing.

I generally assume that there was an early first century Paul for the sake of argument. To what extent the canonical letters bearing his name, even the so-called 7 authentic ones, very likely do not look like what he originally wrote, however. We have good reason to believe they have been added to in the theological disputes of the second century. I don't know if we have any reason to think that any of the "deutero-Paul" letters were composed earlier than the very late first century (more likely second century?). But I have not checked my notes and may be forgetting something crucial.

Dennis MacDonald has an older book discussing the various struggles that appear to have been fought over claims to have Paul's authority for this or that teaching. Paul's original letters were added to in order to use the authority of Paul to justify new teachings; Acts of the Apostles was written in part to demonstrate that Paul was really on the side of "orthodoxy"; Ditto new epistles written in his name (possibly the author of Acts in some cases) to support a certain church authority by using Paul's name; then Acts of Paul and Thecla....

It looks as though "orthodoxy" was attempting to co-opt Paul (who had long been the "apostle of the heretics") in order to win some sort of ideological warfare against those "heretics".

As for the "forged" letters of Paul not including gospel material, the most likely reason is that the gospels were not known by the forgers or not widely enough regarded to be "authentic" and of any use. The Gospel of Mark, if written around 70, appears not to have been part of the "orthodox" establishment until well into the second century (it had a reputation for being associated with Basilides) -- and Mark itself as we know it (its canonical form) was almost certainly not what was originally written by "Mark". There appear to have been additions, redactions, etc. to a gospel that at one point was quite Pauline.

If so, and given the allegorical character of the gospel, if the Gospel of Mark were known to any forger of Paul it is likely that they recognized it as a parable and not to be read as literal history anyway.

[neilgodfrey]

Even if the gospels are unreliable, there is enough evidence in Paul's epistles to allow a historian (a la Neil) to be sure that Jesus existed as a man on earth in the near past (relative to Paul's times), and ending his life as crucified. His existence is corroborated by Tacitus & Josephus' Ant. 20.
And for the gospels, being unreliable does not mean they have to be rejected whole (the same goes for Acts).

Cordially, Bernard

Bernard, you missed the part where I wrote:

What we read in Tacitus is consistent with other details we read in Tacitus that we know he repeated based on popular rumour, not historical research. Historians of ancient history do not rely upon records that derive from generations after the events unless they can establish a clear line of evidence that shows the author was relying ultimately upon much earlier sources.

The evidence for Jesus simply does not meet the minimum standards of historicity according to the reputable methods of historians.

[neilgodfrey]

Neil (for the quote), gmx (for the issue at hand)

That's not complicated. It's fundamentally the same method used by crime investigators to solve crimes, by courts to decide guilt or innocence, by everyday folk to decide what is true and what is not out of all the things they hear.

You're probably right. Successful historians, no more than police, judges or everyday folk, probably don't seek to proportion belief to evidence, but rather pursue what they're paid to do. Successful historians apparently strive to construct useful and aesthetically pleasing models of possible pasts. There's nothing wrong with that, either. Newton's laws are useful and false, for example.

I think there is plenty "wrong with that" and it is certainly not what I said or meant.

We more or less rely upon the ABC news service because of what we know about the provenance or nature of the ABC. We give less weight to a source that is unknown or whose provenance cannot be established or whose record has proven it to be questionable.

If I hear a loved one has been involved in some tragic or unhappy matter I want proof, evidence, before accepting the story. And those bearing the news are, if it is true, usually in a position to give me that sort of reason to believe.

Etc etc etc

[MrMacSon]

I see the OT as clear evidence for the source of episodes in Jesus' life.

The OT is clearly the basis for episodes of Jesus' life?


This is great -

It's not really "silence" as to the origin of the story. Example, Matthew's nativity story comes from the story of Moses. That's clear.
.
.
The point, though, is that if all we have are stories that we can either trace to [the] OT or other literary precedents, or stories that can find no corroboration at all in independent contemporary sources then, we have no reason to embrace the historicity of Jesus.

That does not mean Jesus had no historical existence, however. He might have. It's just that the only evidence we have cannot be corroborated in any way or it can be sourced to something other than historical events.

So the default position is that we have a literary and theological figure of Jesus. We simply cannot know on the basis of the above that Jesus was also historical. There is no unambiguous evidence to support this claim.

I can live with not knowing. I don't think the question matters too much because if Jesus' historical life and sayings really did have the historical impact of the power to change lives and history then I suspect we would find unambiguous evidence to that effect. Instead, we only find "faith-documents" without historical corroboration and stories derived from other fictions.

Maybe the historians are just unlucky in that the most interesting evidence has simply not survived. That's possible, too.

I generally assume that there was an early first century Paul for the sake of argument.

... the canonical letters bearing his name, even the so-called 7 authentic ones, very likely do not look like what he originally [might have written (if he did exit and write in the mid-1st century)], however.

We have good reason to believe they have been added to in the theological disputes of the second century. I don't know if we have any reason to think that any of the "deutero-Paul" letters were composed earlier than the very late first century (more likely second century?). But I have not checked my notes and may be forgetting something crucial.

Dennis MacDonald has an older book discussing the various struggles that appear to have been fought over claims to have Paul's authority for this or that teaching. Paul's original letters were added to in order to use the authority of Paul to justify new teachings; Acts of the Apostles was written in part to 'demonstrate' that Paul was really on the side of "orthodoxy"; Ditto, new epistles written in his name (possibly the author of Acts in some cases) to support a certain church authority by using Paul's name; then Acts of Paul and Thecla....

It looks as though "orthodoxy" was attempting to co-opt Paul (who had long been the "apostle of the heretics") in order to win some sort of ideological warfare against those "heretics".
.

Which might give us reason to doubt ...

As for the "forged" letters of Paul not including gospel material, the most likely reason is that the gospels were not known by the forgers or not widely enough regarded to be "authentic" and of any use.

The Gospel of Mark, if written around 70, appears not to have been part of the "orthodox" establishment until well into the second century (it had a reputation for being associated with Basilides¹) -- and Mark itself as we know it (its canonical form) was almost certainly not what was originally written by "Mark". There appear to have been additions, redactions, etc. to a gospel that at one point was quite Pauline.

If so, and given the allegorical character of the gospel, if the Gospel of Mark were known to any forger of Paul it is likely that they recognized it as a parable and not to be read as literal history anyway.

¹ That's interesting ...

[gmx]

Unknown persons, reasons and audiences does suggest a lot of silence / absence of evidence, does it not? Yet somehow, by the fourth century, Christianity is the state religion of the Roman Empire, but we can't get much of a read on it before that point in time. I think silence is a fair description. You obviously disagree.

We are addressing two different types of silences, I think.

I think differentiating between types of silences is going to be beyond me, unfortunately

And yes, I can definitely agree that the gospel writers found inspiration for their narrative in the OT, but that doesn't contradict historicity (in my view). It is compatible with the traditional view of a historical Jesus, whose followers believed him to be the messiah, and subsequent generations sought to evidence that claim via fullfilment of the scriptures.

I see the OT as clear evidence for the source of episodes in Jesus' life. It's not really "silence" as to the origin of the story. Example, Matthew's nativity story comes from the story of Moses. That's clear.

But you are quite correct that that OT source of stories about Jesus does not prove he was nonhistorical and entirely made up. Correct.

The point, though, is that if all we have are stories that we can either trace to OT or other literary precedents or stories that can find no corroboration at all in independent contemporary sources then we have no reason to embrace the historicity of Jesus.

I'm not sure that's all we have. The passion narrative (you mentioned Matthew lifting the nativity from Moses), controversies, miracles, the extensive dialogue, sayings, monologues, beatitudes etc... sure, it can't be corroborated outside of the gospels, but there is plenty that does not find a direct counterpart in the OT, and therefore came from somewhere.

So the default position is that we have a literary and theological figure of Jesus. We simply cannot know on the basis of the above that Jesus was also historical. There is no unambiguous evidence to support this claim.

I can live with not knowing. I don't think the question matters too much because if Jesus' historical life and sayings really did have the historical impact of the power to change lives and history then I suspect we would find unambiguous evidence to that effect. Instead, we only find "faith-documents" without historical corroboration and stories derived from other fictions.

Maybe the historians are just unlucky in that the most interesting evidence has simply not survived. That's possible, too.

Yes, it is "interesting" that a religion that requires faith in a historical man-god has lost all trace of its historical origins.

I'll consider your longer response to my second question, and reply separately.

[Paul the Uncertain]

neil

We more or less rely upon the ABC news service because of what we know about the provenance or nature of the ABC. We give less weight to a source that is unknown or whose provenance cannot be established or whose record has proven it to be questionable.

So far as I know, ABC is not a source of evidence about historical vs. mythical Jesus, although they probably cover the weather in Sydney well. Comparing how much hypothetical weight I'd give to different sources is only relevant and useful when both sources bear on the same hypothesis set. The same could be said of methods, too, of course, but we've already had that conversation, and your disagreement has been noted with thanks for a vigorous discussion.

The chief issue that was addressed in my post, however, was not the reliability of sources, nor the effectiveness of methods, but the different possible objectives of inference. You gave solid examples of professional and lay uncertain reasoners who pursue other objectives, different from determining the plausibility of fact claims. It is equally correct that professional scholars, too, are apt to pursue other inferential objectives. Based on your testimony, historians apparently follow suit.

If I hear a loved one has been involved in some tragic or unhappy matter I want proof, evidence, before accepting the story.

Yes, I am confident you would. Now suppose there is no more evidence, you have it all. Something new might always turn up, but there is nothing you can do here and now to hasten or postpone that upturning. That's the apt analogy to the problem that confronts the Jesus student.

That you'd rather have a different problem may well be true, but doesn't help solve the problem you actually have.

[John T]

George Washington had a lot of things written about him that weren't true, e.g. he chopped down a cherry tree, threw a silver dollar across the Potomac river, had wooden teeth etc,.

Does that mean George Washington was a myth?

Once you see the double standard of the Mythicists, e.g. Carrier and Price, you will quickly realize they are not really interested in disproving the historical existence of Jesus but in promoting atheism by using a clever trick.

That is, if you can disprove anything about the historical existence of Jesus then by extension you have disproved the existence of God.

Too clever by half.

John T

[Bernard Muller]

to Neil,

Bernard, you missed the part where I wrote:
What we read in Tacitus is consistent with other details we read in Tacitus that we know he repeated based on popular rumour, not historical research. Historians of ancient history do not rely upon records that derive from generations after the events unless they can establish a clear line of evidence that shows the author was relying ultimately upon much earlier sources.
The evidence for Jesus simply does not meet the minimum standards of historicity according to the reputable methods of historians.

Yes, you wrote it, I read it, but there is no evidence that Tacitus was repeating rumour. Tacitus was 8 years old when the great fire under Nero' reign occurred, old enough to remember about this huge event affecting Rome and its aftermath (the persecution of Christians and, after inquiry, the origin of those).
As for Josephus, he was a young priest when James died, and both were living in the same city, Jerusalem.

Cordially, Bernard