That's eight pastoral epistles dated earlier than the gospels. You were saying...?
The Pastoral Epistles are 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus; there are only three pastorals.
Oops, you are quite right. The others are general epistles. At any rate, the point remains: we have pre-gospel Pauline epistles which show knowledge of Jesus' teachings and crucifixion.
Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 164 Location: Lancashire England Karma: 3
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #18 on Apr 28, 2012, 5:53pm »
On the slightly unrelated matter of what Carrier did to Ehrman.. are Americans really allowed to hit each other with frozen fowl? I only ask because I think you could get arrested for it in the United Kingdom - but then we are fairly reserved on the whole.
« Last Edit: Apr 28, 2012, 5:54pm by hawkinthesnow »
The thread is about Eherman's book ......anyone read it perchance??
Yes.
I see you commented on it on another thread with approval. Still waiting for it to hit the bookshops here in sunny Lancashire. No doubt it will, eventually. Ehrman has responded to Carrier on his own blog and was surprisingly restrained given how unpleasant Carrier's remarks were.
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #21 on Apr 29, 2012, 7:39pm »
Thanks TimOneil for your somewhat abrasive answer! I've been off-line for a while but now have a few minutes to respond.
Now I'd already accepted in passing that Mt and Lk appear to have used so called Q so my point about Luke (for all his pious statements about multiple sources) drawing from Mark was somewhat figurative: The fact is he drew mainly from Mark nonetheless. I'm not sure we can see evidence of 4 textual sources behind the Synoptics - it sounds like you've been reading too much Ehrman! I'm afraid I don't see what Mark has "dun" and why he's now sunk either! The point about Mark is that his is the first extant Xtian lit' that places Jesus in Pilate's Palestine. Now I don't suppose there was an instant and widespread conversion to believing in a "historical" Jesus after Mk appeared tho' incidentally, I'm sure the pre Markan Xtians believed in what they thought was a historical Jesus. It's just that they had no information (and perhaps little interest) re his historical (or geographical) context - nor, of course, his biography! His whole importance for them, you'll remember, was that his re-appearances were signalling the imminent "end of days". Nothing the early Xtians say require us to believe their Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection happened immediately prior to his apparitions. To assume they did is to read them thro' gospel glasses. Those events could have happened centuries ago for all they (and we) knew. Mark is generally dated at 70+CE tho' there is a powerful argument for placing it around 90CE. But either way, Mark and its underlying information was obviously becoming current toward the end of the century and here and there communities would presumably acquire a scrap here and a scrap there. Thus early in the 2nd C The Pastorals and Tacitus have come across the info' that Jesus stood before Pilate. A little later perhaps, Ignatius seems to have also become convinced he was born of a virgin. We take that little dogma for granted of course but it must surely have taken quite a stretch of credulity on Ignatius' part to accept such a thing - unless of course virgin born divinities were "culturally available" (i.e. believable) in those days!
Now to turn to 1 Clement. This is usually dated in the mid 90s and, perhaps unsurprisingly, he hasn't yet learned that Jesus was tried by Pilate or was virgin born. However, he does say that Jesus "taught" certain things and he also refers to him suffering "stripes" for us. This is far more specific than anything we get from the earliest Xtians so it appears that Clement may have been just on the cusp of these traditions gaining currency - at least in Rome. Notice that Josephus writing from Rome at the same time gives us no info' on Xtianity whatsoever (we must ignore the forgery) altho' even if he had heard something this "heresy of Judaism" as it's been called would likely have been of absolutely no interest to him. Recall, also, that all Paul's various ethical insights came "from the (obviously risen) Lord" and tho' he mentions Jesus well over 100 times he never says Jesus ever taught anything.
So I don't think producing 1 Clement really "destroys my argument" as Euglena so gleefully put it!
To get back to Ehrman and his book it appears that it won't be the definitive defence of Xtianity that many had hoped. It's riddled with elementary errors and some crass contradictions and for all his insistence that one needs special qualifications to debate "the real experts" like himself, his own competence seems very questionable. However, even on the most charitable reception of his book his own findings are of very cold comfort to traditional Christians because he has no Virgin birth, no miracles and crucially, no resurrection. Even if he's shown that A person called Jesus once existed he's also shown us that such a character was light years removed from the popular gospel hero.
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #22 on Apr 29, 2012, 9:17pm »
Nothing the early Xtians say require us to believe their Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection happened immediately prior to his apparitions. To assume they did is to read them thro' gospel glasses. Those events could have happened centuries ago for all they (and we) knew.
"early Xtians" - You are very vague in much of your discourse. Do you mean Paul, or other writers also? Do you exclude the Gospel-writers? You criticize Paul for not including much of the detail in the Gospels? so do you not see Paul through "gospel glasses"?
No doubt Tim O'Neil and others will give you a fuller response.But just as a matter of curiosity re 1 Corinthians 15:7-8
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
So Jesus may have been crucified centuries before appearing to his brother, then his apostles, and then Paul who met James and the apostles (or some of them e.g. Peter)?
To get back to Ehrman and his book it appears that it won't be the definitive defence of Xtianity that many had hoped.
He did not write it as a defense of Christianity at all.
Quote:
Even if he's shown that A person called Jesus once existed he's also shown us that such a character was light years removed from the popular gospel hero.
Since this is what Erhman believes, it's hardly surprising this is the conclusion in his book.
Thanks TimOneil for your somewhat abrasive answer! I've been off-line for a while but now have a few minutes to respond.
The point about Mark is that his is the first extant Xtian lit' that places Jesus in Pilate's Palestine. Now I don't suppose there was an instant and widespread conversion to believing in a "historical" Jesus after Mk appeared tho' incidentally, I'm sure the pre Markan Xtians believed in what they thought was a historical Jesus.
There was no need for a conversion to belief in a historical Jesus. If we take Mark's gospel, there are sufficient grounds for treating it as in part eyewitness testimony. There are for example, his Aramaisms. The simplest explanation for this is that these are remembered words that were preserved in the tradition that came to Mark.
There are also incidental details that grab you by the scruff of the neck and throw you back into the political realities of 1st century Palestine.
For example, Mark 1:19. ".. he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat preparing their nets. Immediately he called them and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and left them".
Why mention the hired men?
In Palestine, much of the land (including the lakes) was owned by private landowners, who would charge for fishing rights. The richer fishermen with their own equipment would pay for fishing rights and fish, often hiring others to work for and with them. Poorer fishermen would have to hire equipment too, and probably just fish on their own.
Just two little words ..."hired men", but behind them lie a whole background environment. It's little details like this that crop up unexpectedly that convince me at least, that we are not dealing with invention here.
Go through the parables too. It is an interesting exercise to see how often hirelings make an appearance. The parables are rooted in an agrarian culture, and display an intellect that keenly observed the political and cultural environment on which those parables drew.
This is just scratching the surface. I have read the gospels dozens of times, and each time I sense I am encountering, for all the theological overlay, a real figure, in a real environment. I am certainly no Bible scholar, but I think coming at the gospels just from this literary point of view, and with a certain literary sensitivity I have no doubts that we are dealing with a real historical person here.
Reading Mythicist arguments only convinces me of this. They seem so hellbent on tring to find parallels and sources and archetypes and influences and god knows what else, that they seem incapable of actually reading the gospels themselves and allowing them to reveal what they have to reveal. They are rather like art critics, or film critics, so busy trying to find what influenced the artist or film maker, that they have become incapable of seeing the fil or art work in it's own right.
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #26 on May 5, 2012, 5:43pm »
Regent Master: Sandwiches The “early Christians” are the very first Xtian writers: Paul and several others whose epistles are generally dated before about 80CE or when the gospel traditions begin to appear. Sankari gave a list on April 23rd . And yes, I exclude the gospel writers who are not first generation Xtian writings. I do not “criticise” Paul for not mentioning gospel events – how could he if they hadn’t happened! What is baffling is that such a Xtian enthusiast did not use the gospels material (obviously not the gospels themselves which post date him) especially when they would have given him strong support for much of his campaigning. The fact that neither he nor any other early Xtian makes any such mention seems best explained by assuming the events later alleged in the gospels had NOT actually happened. If they had happened the early Xtians could NOT have been unaware of them. How could they have been unaware or uninterested in Jesus’ passion before Pilate for instance especially when there was obviously an early Xtian community in Jerusalem itself? Note how Paul shows no special curiosity or respect for Jerusalem as a place of special significance yet the place has completely obsessed Xtians ever since the gospels had Jesus crucified there and even galvanised the whole of Europe (a sort of proto NATO I suppose!) into centuries of crusading! Those events described in the gospels just could not have happened or there would have been at least a trace of them in the writings of the very first xtians who were, after all, best placed to have witnessed those things IF THEY REALLY HAPPENED.
As for Cor 15:7-8, you are assuming that James was Jesus’ blood brother (rather than simply one of a fraternity serving the risen Lord – like Paul himself) and you’re also assuming that apostles equals disciples. In Paul’s usage, apostles meant those who’d seen the risen Lord (such as himself, this James and Cephas) not earthly companions of Jesus. James’ status is an important point of the whole debate. If we can be satisfied he was Jesus’ blood brother then the issue is closed and Jesus existed but although most people blithely assume that he was Jesus’ actual brother that case is actually very unconvincing. Ehrman does little to settle the matter in his book and his equating Peter with Cephas is very unconvincing also which is hardly surprising since he devoted a lot of energy earlier in his career to distinguishing the two!
Regent Master Fortigun: If the average person picked up Ehrman’s “Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth” I think they’d be entitled to expect a pretty vigorous defence of Xtianity and would be quite surprised to find it so threadbare! Yes, that’s obviously what Ehrman believes but he lives in scholarland and perhaps has lost some feel for the expectations of most Xtians.
Master of the Arts, Sankari: You say Mark is dated 60-80CE. We’re in danger of nearly agreeing here! I’ll go with the 80 and add 10 yrs for luck!
Master of the arts Hawk: Mark may well impress you with his realism but of course any fictional film or novel worth its salt will do the same. I was very engaged by the setting of Avatar but once I’d taken off my 3D specs I stopped believing it was real so I’m afraid we can’t assess historical truth on such subjective emotive grounds! I don’t think you should just blame “the mythicists” for everything either. The gospels started to unravel 200 yrs ago when devout Xtians began studying them closely with the most pious of motives and found that they were full of flaws. The closer they looked the more the story turned to dust! For instance so long ago as the mid 19th C the pioneering German theologian David Strauss felt forced to remark of the resurrection that never has an incredible phenomenon been less likely and never has an incredible occurrence been worse attested. As for the parables they don’t always teach us what we think they do. Consider the most famous one of all – The Good Samaritan: It doesn’t actually have a very worthy moral at all and the fact we think it does is because we re-interpret what Jesus supposedly said. Read it again carefully and see what I mean.
If the average person picked up Ehrman’s “Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth” I think they’d be entitled to expect a pretty vigorous defence of Xtianity and would be quite surprised to find it so threadbare!
That's nonsense. They shouldn't be entitled to any such thing, since Ehrman explicitly wronte on a different subject.
Quote:
Yes, that’s obviously what Ehrman believes but he lives in scholarland and perhaps has lost some feel for the expectations of most Xtians.
He doesn't care about 'the expectations of most Christians', and has made this abundantly clear.
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #28 on May 6, 2012, 1:25pm »
Contraxt:
I do not “criticise” Paul for not mentioning gospel events – how could he if they hadn’t happened! What is baffling is that such a Xtian enthusiast did not use the gospels material (obviously not the gospels themselves which post date him) especially when they would have given him strong support for much of his campaigning. The fact that neither he nor any other early Xtian makes any such mention seems best explained by assuming the events later alleged in the gospels had NOT actually happened. If they had happened the early Xtians could NOT have been unaware of them.
Paul did not mention most "gospel events" in his letters is perhaps "best explained" by the fact the early Christians to whom he was writing had already heard about them from himself? Why would he repeat it in a letter perhaps letters in response asking for further details about theological details like "When is Jesus returning?" and "How do we behave in the meantime?"
That seems the simplest explanation?
Note how Paul shows no special curiosity or respect for Jerusalem as a place of special significance yet the place has completely obsessed Xtians ever since the gospels had Jesus crucified there and even galvanised the whole of Europe (a sort of proto NATO I suppose!) into centuries of crusading!
You seem again to be looking at matters through history-tinted spectacles? Paul had respect for the "Holy Ones" in Jerusalem, for whom he organised charitable donations, but as he said:
"Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more."
Paul's interest was in the significance of Christ and his resurrection, rather than the site of The Jewish Temple? The Muslims felt it necessary to raise a mosque on the Temple Mount, but the Christians refrained from building a church or cathedral there? Christianity resided in belief in the resurrection, not in the site of the Temple or Jerusalem.
As for Cor 15:7-8, you are assuming that James was Jesus’ blood brother (rather than simply one of a fraternity serving the risen Lord – like Paul himself) and you’re also assuming that apostles equals disciples. In Paul’s usage, apostles meant those who’d seen the risen Lord (such as himself, this James and Cephas) not earthly companions of Jesus. James’ status is an important point of the whole debate. If we can be satisfied he was Jesus’ blood brother then the issue is closed and Jesus existed but although most people blithely assume that he was Jesus’ actual brother that case is actually very unconvincing.
So James was some random Christian who happens to be describes as the brother of the Lord and "although although most people blithely assume that he was Jesus’ actual brother that case is actually very unconvincing"?
Unconvincing in what way? Again you are a little vague? As to James, I tend to go with the scholars. For example the non-Christian Geza Vermes (Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies, Oxford)
Jesus in the Eyes of Josephus GEZA VERMES January/February 2010
Joseph son of Matthias, better known as Flavius Josephus — surnamed after his patron, the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius — was the greatest Jewish historian of antiquity. Without his work, much of the contemporaneous history of Israel would be floating in a vacuum. Josephus's vignettes concerning Jesus, John the Baptist and Jesus's brother, James, are the only pieces of outside evidence relating to first-century New Testament figures. The issue of their authenticity is, therefore, of major importance.
James, the brother of Jesus
The authenticity of the mention of James is the least questionable of the three anecdotes. Josephus identifies James not as the son of "X", but as "the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ". Paul also refers to him as "James the brother of the Lord".
Of course, the Josephus reference could be an "interpolation" (the last refuge of the Jesus-mythicist?) and Paul's references and indeed references in the rest of the New Testament to James could be again invented or interpolations or mistranslations or misunderstandings, but the simplest explanation as supported by the reasonably objective and most eminent scholars seems to be to the contrary? (That chap from the internet - Richard Carrier(?) has not replaced Professor Vermes at Oxford, yet?)
After all, if Jesus is a myth, and apparently James, then why is Paul not a myth also? But if Paul is a myth, then he cannot be used as evidence of a Jesus-myth? It all seems unbelievably complicated as opposed to accepting the New Testament at relative face-value from a historical point of view, whatever one thinks of its claims of divinity for Jesus?
Joined: Jun 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 164 Location: Lancashire England Karma: 3
Re: Prof. Ehrman's new book, "Did Jesus Exist" « Reply #29 on May 6, 2012, 7:40pm »
Quote:
Master of the arts Hawk: Mark may well impress you with his realism but of course any fictional film or novel worth its salt will do the same. I was very engaged by the setting of Avatar but once I’d taken off my 3D specs I stopped believing it was real so I’m afraid we can’t assess historical truth on such subjective emotive grounds!
This is a standard mythicist move. No matter how many examples one provides of how the gospels reflect the political and social realities of first century Palestine to show that we are dealing here with a historical figure, mythicists always fall back on how this shows how gifted the gospel writer is, particularly Mark, how he must have mastered a knowledge of the political, social and economic circumstances and weaved them into his legendary story.
And if this is what Mark did, then I would be impressed by his virtuosity. But I am not impressed with the gospel of Mark or any of the gospels for this reason. In all the gospels we are breathing the air of first century Palestine, and the little incidental details just accumulate, and by far the simplest explanation is that we are dealing with memories transformed by the writers into what they call gospel.
Quote:
I don’t think you should just blame “the mythicists” for everything either. The gospels started to unravel 200 yrs ago when devout Xtians began studying them closely with the most pious of motives and found that they were full of flaws. The closer they looked the more the story turned to dust! For instance so long ago as the mid 19th C the pioneering German theologian David Strauss felt forced to remark of the resurrection that never has an incredible phenomenon been less likely and never has an incredible occurrence been worse attested.
So the mythicists are just taking the next logical step in gospel criticism? I don't think so. David Strauss was notorious for attempting to naturalise the gospel, by ruling out the miraculous. However that was not something he came to as a conclusion of studying the gospels, but what he started with as a premise. So, since in his view, miracles could not happen, then the stories of Jesus performing miracles in the gospels could not have happened either, so let's reinterpret them as mythical or symbolic. And since Jesus was not the Son of God, and the gospels record his life, let's see if they can tell us anything about the real human Jesus - and so was born the "quest for the historical Jesus". Which all came crashing to the ground with Albert Schweitzer in 1910, who showed that David Strauss and his ilk were ideologically motivated and all they achieved was to see their own reflection in the well of history.
Quote:
As for the parables they don’t always teach us what we think they do. Consider the most famous one of all – The Good Samaritan: It doesn’t actually have a very worthy moral at all and the fact we think it does is because we re-interpret what Jesus supposedly said. Read it again carefully and see what I mean.
Another parable rooted in a social context. Jericho is down from Jerusalem and was notorious for bandits hiding out among the hills. It was on route from Jerusalem to Galilee avoiding Samaria. The priest and the Levite were temple functionaries whose term of service had finished and were on their way home. The Samaritan may well have been a member of an auxiliary Roman command troop, which were employed in Judea. Most Roman soldiers in service in Palestine were either Syrians or Samaritans and there would be no reason for a Samaritan to be near Jerusalem otherwise. Yet another reason for Jews to hate Samaritans.
However, the message seems to be that your neighbour may well not be the person you would most expect it to be, but may well be the person you might expect to detest you. As for misinterpreting it, it is a response to a direct question "Who is my neighbour?" it is also an implied criticism of traditional Jewish piety as exemplified by the Temple, and Jesus had quite a lot to say about that! But if you are thinking that the story is meant to be a vehicle for Mark's alleged anti Jewish stance, then I would disagree. Jesus is portrayed as a devout Jew, but one who is in protest against the hypocrisy and abuses of the temple elite, as were many other Jews of the time.
You see, the gospel only makes sense if it is dealing with history.
(Intriguingly, when I put my post through spellcheck, it wanted to replace mythicists with methodists. Hmm!)
I have included the following link just because I found it fascinating reading. Just taking one example of where the gospels draw on geniuine historical recollection is not very impressive, but there are so many little incidental details in the gospels that are drawn from a specific first century context - and these just relate to fishing.
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