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Topic: OT: Did The Historical Jesus Exist? Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Steve De Young
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 8:46am | IP Logged | 1 post reply
Somebody might have been crucified,* and he might even have been the last one in the "line"
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This puts a finer point on the argument.  Because if this 'last guy' was named Yeshua, a fairly common Jewish name at the time, then we have a historical Jesus who was crucified by the Romans.

So, this argument is a very narrow one at this point.
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Michael Roberts
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 9:04am | IP Logged | 2 post reply
I'm not just being precious here, this is Bart Ehrman's central argument for the existence of a historical Jesus of Nazareth:  if he was invented, no one ever would have attributed to him the detail of having been crucified by the Romans.  That was well known to be what happened to false Messiahs.  So if you were trying to put someone, real or imagined, over as the Messiah, that is the absolute last thing you would say about them.

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Isn't that the point of all the drama with the Sanhedrin trial and the unruly mob forcing Pontius Pilate's hand though? It's a Messiah crucified by Romans who wasn't /really/ crucified by Romans. 
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Michael Penn
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 9:27am | IP Logged | 3 post reply
The problem with discussing whether the Jesus of the Gospels existed with a believer is that they will never accept even the remotest possibility that their Jesus didn't exist. They cannot accept it and remain a believer. That was true 2000 years ago as well as today. So, the so-called criterion of embarrassment (i.e., this is so shameful it must be true) can be drastically exaggerated if not utterly misapplied because doing so assumes religions are subject to logic. They are not.

Tangentially, it's fascinating how Christians retreat into even more vamping (to use JB's word) because they will turn on each other if you press them about basic Christian doctrine: that's not my Jesus! Don't you unbelievers lump me in with those Christians! We Catholics don't say that! We Orthodox don't say this! We Protestants don't say the other! But that's merely another another way Christians today are just like the earliest Christians. If a Catholic seizes on a word from the Gospels and uses it as proof of doctrine, the actual "proof" is in Catholic tradition; same with any Orthodox who disagree with the Catholic. If you're a non-believer, how can you carry out an honest a discussion with a believer about what "dei" in Mark means? It can never mean anything except what my Church tells me it means.

Edited by Michael Penn on September 14 2017 at 9:30am
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Steve De Young
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 9:56am | IP Logged | 4 post reply
The problem with discussing whether the Jesus of the Gospels existed
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I didn't think that that was the topic of this thread.  Rather, it was whether a Jesus of Nazareth existed around whom the Christian tradition(s) formed.
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Steve De Young
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 10:01am | IP Logged | 5 post reply
If you're a non-believer, how can you carry out an honest a discussion with a believer about what "dei" in Mark means? It can never mean anything except what my Church tells me it means.
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One can make an objective statement that it has been interpreted differently by different Christian groups throughout Christian history.  And if someone, a believer or non-believer, makes a positive argument that it means what one particular, late Christian tradition says it does, one can point out to them that historically, it was not always, and still is not always, interpreted that way.

And this is without entering into a discussion of literary theory and what we mean when we say a text 'means' something.  Are we debating what the author of Mark meant when he originally wrote it, if that word is even what he originally wrote?  Are we discussing what it historically has meant in the interpretation of Christian traditions?  In the latter case, it has had multiple meaning across time and geography. 
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John Byrne
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 10:09am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
Somebody might have been crucified,* and he might even have been the last one in the "line"

---------------------------------

This puts a finer point on the argument. Because if this 'last guy' was named Yeshua, a fairly common Jewish name at the time, then we have a historical Jesus who was crucified by the Romans.

So, this argument is a very narrow one at this point.

••

That's a big "if" upon which to hang a whole religion.

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John Byrne
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 10:12am | IP Logged | 7 post reply
One can make an objective statement that it has been interpreted differently by different Christian groups throughout Christian history.

••

And many of those interpretations got hung up on the notion that the Son of God could be grabbed by a bunch of Roman thugs, tortured and killed!

Some of those "different" groups even went so far as to deny the divinity of Jesus, to get around that one. And some suggested that Jesus was just some poor schmuck who was possessed by the Holy Spirit, which promptly departed when it came to the whole dying on the cross thing.

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Matt Reed
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 10:34am | IP Logged | 8 post reply
I was taught that Jesus knew what was going to happen, that it was preordained that he'd "die for our sins".  The whole "before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times" said by him to Peter and all that. 
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Don Zomberg
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 11:46am | IP Logged | 9 post reply
Bart Ehrman's central argument

Ehrman, like so many others, continues to ignore the principle of Occam's Razor. For a supposed agnostic, he's got a real ****-on for the "historical" Jesus. 
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John Byrne
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply
Ehrman is a lapsed believer, and the sense I've gotten from reading his work is that not so deep down inside he wants it all to be true.
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Don Zomberg
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply
Indeed. You can't be the type of scholar he is, with his extensive knowledge of the Gospels--and still proclaim that Jesus was one of the great moral teachers of all time. That dog won't hunt.
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Steve De Young
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Posted: September 14 2017 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply
Ehrman, like so many others, continues to ignore the principle of Occam's Razor. For a supposed agnostic, he's got a real ****-on for the "historical" Jesus. 
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This literally makes no sense.  The two questions, one's faith and one's historical judgment regarding whether there was a historical person Jesus of Nazareth have no connection to each other whatsoever.  One can believe that there was a Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified by the Romans, and believe as Bart Ehrman does that the New Testament is basically bunkum.  And there are forms of Christianity, like Gnosticism, that don't teach that Jesus was a historical person.

I am not a Buddhist, but I accept the scholarly consensus that there was a historical person named Siddhartha who was a philosopher, because, according to Occam's Razor, that is the simplest explanation for the origins of Buddhism.  While none of the later traditions about the Buddha have historical value, it is a simpler explanation that these traditions grew up around a historical figure than that they just materialized ex nihilo.

I am not a Muslim, but I accept the scholarly consensus that there was a historical person, Muhammad, who was regarded as a prophet, because according to Occam's Razor, that is the simplest explanation for the origins of Islam.  While none of the later traditions about Muhammad have historical value, it is a simpler explanation that these traditions grew up around a historical figure than that they just materialized ex nihilo.

Bart Ehrman is not a Christian, but he accepts the scholarly consensus that there was a historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, who was executed by the Romans, because according to Occam's Razor, that is the simplest explanation for the origins of Christianity.  While none of the later traditions about Jesus have any historical value for him and other scholars, it is a simpler explanation that these traditions grew up around a historical figure than that they just materialized ex nihilo.

And I really don't see how one can argue that someone who says Jesus wasn't buried, that his body was thrown into a mass grave and eaten by dogs, let alone not rising from the dead, is somehow secretly a Christian or yearning to be.  Ehrman compares his study of the New Testament to his wife's study of Shakespeare, it represents a historically important literary work.


Edited by Steve De Young on September 14 2017 at 12:59pm
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