Skeptical response to Bart Ehrman's book in the historical Jesus

[Cerebrum123]

If you've got a serious case of false dichotomy going on. If Christianity isn't true, that doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

I should have qualified that better. Based on everything I have studied, it's either atheism, Christianity, or some form of deism, which I see as functionally indistinguishable from atheism.

That's more of the false dichotomy.

Does the qualification help?

You could ask the "why does God care" question about sending Christ. Who can fathom God's reasoning?

In this scenario you can ask "Why?", but you can't really deny that He does care. In the other, if He doesn't care enough to help us avoid hell, then why would He care if we obeyed Him or not? Oh, and the answer seems to be that we are made in God's image, so we have inherent worth as such. It's the same reason the Bible gives for murder being wrong.

Piling non-sequiturs on top of false dichotomies isn't a good idea.

I can see the false dichotomy, and I have qualified that. Having done that, a God who doesn't care(ie deism), is little different from a God who doesn't exist, functionally speaking anyway.

As I said in my first response to you, that you and Paul claim thus doesn't make it so.

You said that you didn't know where Christians took the "wrong turn". I was pointing out the most blatant NT example of this thought process.

You're proving my point. There doesn't have to be a salvific goal, nor would one be expected.

[b][b]I will go to him, but he will not return to me.

That must be it.

This sounds a lot snarkier than it was intended. It's kind of a cheap shot on your part to imply that my knowledge is faulty somehow as opposed to allowing that I could form a different conclusion with the same set of information. I could turn it around and say that you've forgotten or are looking in the wrong places. Intended or not, it comes across as a reason to dismiss conclusions without actually engaging the reasoning behind them.

Perhaps mine sounded worse than intended as well. Usually when it comes to something in the Bible, especially the OT, there are many people who expect things to be explicitly spelled out for them. That wasn't always the case, and in fact, I'm pretty sure that they left out a lot of information they were sure their audience would have taken for granted back then. There are also a lot you can miss out on, or even forget. I know it happens to me too.

Your explanation is definitely possible. I see people come to different opinions on stuff, even with the same information. It's usually more obvious on something like a publicized court case, but, I still see it happen.

ETA: I have to take a little bit of a break from this, but I still welcome a response. With certain medical stuff lately, I have to do more walking, and some other stuff. Hasn't exactly been the greatest week.

ETA2: Except for coming across wrong, I felt it was still a decent discussion.

[shunyadragon]

Ehrman does not see Jesus as leading any kind of violent rebellion against Rome.

I did not say violent rebellion. In Rome's view he was advocating rebellion against Rome by claiming to be 'King of the Jews,' and the standard punishment is to be crucified.

[Palaeogrammatos]

[b]

This is an oft badly misread passage from scripture. Since you are using this to illustrate the promise of salvation, I will ask you to point directly to the place in the cited text that explicitly indicates this. By the way, the word (mis)translated as both "crush" and "strike" is the SAME word. There is nothing on the face of the passage that warrants a change in the translation: "He will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel." In other words: snakes bite people. People step on snakes. It's all pretty pedestrian.

I'm not sure what is altogether exceptional about this passage. It is an apocalyptic prophecy, and like all such similar sorts of literature this "worldview" culminates in a future, glorious, cosmic hope for the dispersed, then occupied nation of Israel. "God's kingdom" here is nothing like the conventional Christian idea of heaven. This is a hopeful longing for a real world nationally conceived restoration.

I will go to him, but he will not return to me.

But in accordance with the ancient Jewish and early Israelite concept of the afterlife, this expectation was not to see him in heaven, but rather in Sheol: the realm of the dead; the domain of the shades.

[NormATive]

1 Corinthians 15:13-15
New International Version (NIV)
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised.

If Jesus was not real, and did not really rise from the dead then Christianity is completely in vain, and useless.[/QUOTE]

You can't really be that stupid can you?

[Doug Shaver]

We have NO stories of Jesus between his "increasingly" miraculous birth and the beginning of his public ministry. What writer would do that?

Yes, I have. It's wonderful poetry.

It is wonderfully poetic, but it is prose. And it is attributed to a man named Almustafa, who is talking to several people who have come to bid him farewell because he is leaving them after having lived in their city for several years. The narrative includes no mention of Almustafa's birth, no mention of anything about his life before coming to their city, and no mention of why he is leaving.

I meant, what writer of fiction would go to the trouble of creating a character like Jesus and give us virtually no biographical information?

On the assumption (for the sake of discussion) that Mark created Jesus, how does Gibran's creation of Almustafa differ from Mark's in terms of omitted biographical detail?

What does it matter if he existed in reality or not?

Many people are very interested in the subject, and I happen to be one of them. I didn't start this thread. I just joined in.

If he did not exist, I think there is much to learn from the fact that for almost 2,000 years, there has been a nearly unanimous consensus in the Western world that he did exist, even among people who have been quite hostile to the religion that he, or his presumed disciples, allegedly founded.

The philosophy that bears his name is just as real.

This discussion is not about the credibility of any teaching attributed to him.

[Doug Shaver]

I would agree that the evidence for Jesus' existence is not strong, but I would also suggest that it is better than the case for the invention of an entirely mythical Christ

You have a lot of company. At the moment, practically the entire academic world agrees.

and furthermore, the plausibility of the existence of Jesus is entirely unremarkable.

It is, prima facie. The problems arise on secunda facie.

there is no precedent from which to conclude that they were intended as anything but "historical."

What would that precedent look like, if there were one?

but it strains credulity to imagine that they were intended as works of fiction.

Why? What did other works of Greco-Roman fiction have that the gospels don't have? Or, what do the gospels have that is missing from other fiction written during that time in that part of the world?

Furthermore, there are enough semiticisms throughout the gospels to indicate that these were written by Jews; there is enough literary and generic overlap with Second Temple Jewish literature to confirm that these were produced within a Palestinian Jewish context.

I'm not qualified to agree or disagree, but I know there are qualified people who do disagree.

As mentioned in another post, Richard Carrier is currently leading the mythicist charge, and his argument was very thoroughly debunked by Thom Stark here, here, and here.

I'll read the links later and maybe post a critique. But I have read lots and lots of attempts to debunk Carrier and have yet to find a cogent argument in any of them.

Carrier depends upon one of the Dead Sea Scrolls texts, 11Q13, in an attempt to illustrate this concept from within a Second Temple Jewish milieu.

If that text were the only evidence Carrier had to work with, then his argument would probably be in very serious trouble.

This is much more historically and socially palatable than the idea of a fictional figure at the heart of some quasi-Jewish mystery religion erupting from within Palestine.

I don't judge theories by their palatability, historical or social.

[robrecht]

I did not say violent rebellion. In Rome's view he was advocating rebellion against Rome by claiming to be 'King of the Jews,' and the standard punishment is to be crucified.

Good, that's what I was trying to clarify. In what sense do you (or Ehrman, if you prefer) think Jesus was advocating rebellion against Rome? Or do you think this is lost to history and we can only recover what Rome, ie, Pilate or the local Judean sanhedrin probably thought?

[Palaeogrammatos]

Good, that's what I was trying to clarify. In what sense do you (or Ehrman, if you prefer) think Jesus was advocating rebellion against Rome? Or do you think this is lost to history and we can only recover what Rome, ie, Pilate or the local Judean sanhedrin probably thought?

I expect that shunyadragon will answer differently, but I for one am not satisfied with his presentation of Jesus's movement and Rome's response. I'm not convinced that the real problem was specifically that Jesus claimed the Jewish throne. For Rome, it would have been enough that Jesus proclaimed the imminent end of the Roman empire and the establishment of a divine, global kingdom that coincided with the restoration of Israel. Jesus' message is consistent with an apocalyptic worldview that appeared from the outside-in to be a radical and dangerous form of nationalism. Jesus was in reality probably a very minor political threat, but Rome dealt with him as they did with all such quibbles. The severity of the response was in no small part exacerbated by the fact that he was so visible in Jerusalem during passover.

So, my answer to your question is that Jesus was probably not advocating "rebellion" against Rome so much as he was threatening the peace at a most inopportune time by implication of his apocalyptic expectations. We can see this by way of a careful read of the historical sources at our disposal, and to the best of our ability in our imperfect efforts to reconstruct a plausible, realistic scenario that accounts for all the evidence. This means that we take what the gospels say seriously, but within a context that understands that the intersection between "history", "religion", and "literature" in the ancient world is much more fluid than it is by modern standards. So then, we have examples from history of similar movements to Jesus's; we have examples of similar rhetoric and teaching as his; we have examples of similar sorts of literature to the gospels; we have examples of similar sorts of Roman responses to local Jewish apocalyptically motivated uprisings. We can use these to reconstruct an imperfect picture, but one that likely fairly represents the contours of what actually happened.

[robrecht]

I expect that shunyadragon will answer differently, but I for one am not satisfied with his presentation of Jesus's movement and Rome's response. I'm not convinced that the real problem was specifically that Jesus claimed the Jewish throne. For Rome, it would have been enough that Jesus proclaimed the imminent end of the Roman empire and the establishment of a divine, global kingdom that coincided with the restoration of Israel. Jesus' message is consistent with an apocalyptic worldview that appeared from the outside-in to be a radical and dangerous form of nationalism. Jesus was in reality probably a very minor political threat, but Rome dealt with him as they did with all such quibbles. The severity of the response was in no small part exacerbated by the fact that he was so visible in Jerusalem during passover.

So, my answer to your question is that Jesus was probably not advocating "rebellion" against Rome so much as he was threatening the peace at a most inopportune time by implication of his apocalyptic expectations. We can see this by way of a careful read of the historical sources at our disposal, and to the best of our ability in our imperfect efforts to reconstruct a plausible, realistic scenario that accounts for all the evidence. This means that we take what the gospels say seriously, but within a context that understands that the intersection between "history", "religion", and "literature" in the ancient world is much more fluid than it is by modern standards. So then, we have examples from history of similar movements to Jesus's; we have examples of similar rhetoric and teaching as his; we have examples of similar sorts of literature to the gospels; we have examples of similar sorts of Roman responses to local Jewish apocalyptically motivated uprisings. We can use these to reconstruct an imperfect picture, but one that likely fairly represents the contours of what actually happened.

Thanks for your response. As I understand Ehrman (again I've only read a little of his stuff), he thinks Jesus and his followers must have (in the sense of most probably) thought of him(self) as the (a?) messiah in order for his followers to make this claim despite the execution and even aside from the resurrection appearances. Do you have a more plausible explanation or just think it is just not possible to know with any degree of even plausibility or probability?

[Palaeogrammatos]

Thanks for your response. As I understand Ehrman (again I've only read a little of his stuff), he thinks Jesus and his followers must have (in the sense of most probably) thought of him(self) as the (a?) messiah in order for his followers to make this claim despite the execution and even aside from the resurrection appearances. Do you have a more plausible explanation or just think it is just not possible to know with any degree of even plausibility or probability?

[robrecht]

I agree. There are lots of plausible scenarios. I think Ehrman has an overly optimistic view of independent attestation, for which he does not assume the burden of proof. As a popularist, he doesn't need to, but his his historical methodology is essentially the same as Meier's, and he also has little interest in the prior questions of indirect or direct dependence upon sources and authorial creativity. I think God is pretty well hidden, but finds us in unexpected ways.

[NormATive]

It is wonderfully poetic, but it is prose. And it is attributed to a man named Almustafa, who is talking to several people who have come to bid him farewell because he is leaving them after having lived in their city for several years. The narrative includes no mention of Almustafa's birth, no mention of anything about his life before coming to their city, and no mention of why he is leaving.

Yes, now that you jogged my memory; I do remember it was sort of structured like Job where there were questions and answers. But, you are right. No details of his birth or family - just a recitation of his philosophy of life. I particularly liked the section on Death. How we must come to embrace it as a releasing of our selves and "melt into the sun" or some such. It's been QUITE a while since I read that (high school!).

On the assumption (for the sake of discussion) that Mark created Jesus, how does Gibran's creation of Almustafa differ from Mark's in terms of omitted biographical detail?

Gibran paints a complete picture of what Almustafa thinks and feels about every aspect of life. With Mark's Jesus, we get little snippets of sayings and parables. You really don't get much of a picture of what made Jesus "tick." Hell, I don't even think we can attribute half of what he supposedly said to the "real" Jesus.

If he did not exist, I think there is much to learn from the fact that for almost 2,000 years, there has been a nearly unanimous consensus in the Western world that he did exist, even among people who have been quite hostile to the religion that he, or his presumed disciples, allegedly founded.

As a writer, I wish I could create a character that emblematic!

NORM

[Doug Shaver]

how does Gibran's creation of Almustafa differ from Mark's in terms of omitted biographical detail?

Gibran paints a complete picture of what Almustafa thinks and feels about every aspect of life. With Mark's Jesus, we get little snippets of sayings and parables.

I'm not sure that addresses my question. Your claim was that the gospels' omission of biographical detail is evidence for their not being works of fiction. But there is even less biographical detail in The Prophet. Indeed, there is essentially none at all.

[Palaeogrammatos]

What would that precedent look like, if there were one?


Why? What did other works of Greco-Roman fiction have that the gospels don't have? Or, what do the gospels have that is missing from other fiction written during that time in that part of the world?

I'm not qualified to agree or disagree, but I know there are qualified people who do disagree.

Disagree with what exactly? The presence of semiticisms in the Gospels or the Jewish origins of the Gospels? Both of these facts are almost universally embraced within scholarship today, and the already extremely robust consensus seems only to be growing. I would need to hear an effective counter-argument that hasn't already been widely debunked.

I'll read the links later and maybe post a critique. But I have read lots and lots of attempts to debunk Carrier and have yet to find a cogent argument in any of them.


If that text were the only evidence Carrier had to work with, then his argument would probably be in very serious trouble.

It is not the only one, but it is certainly the one text that Carrier forwards as the best evidence to make his argument. I will post a critique I have written in response to Carrier from another forum below. After having read some of his work, I have to say that I am not overly impressed by his exegetical skills. He may very well be a qualified classicist, but he does not leave any doubt about his incompetence with regards to Second Temple Jewish history, culture, and literature.

[Palaeogrammatos]

You must know and understand: From the issuance of the word to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the [time of the] anointed leader is seven weeks; and for sixty-two weeks it will be rebuilt, square and moat, but in a time of distress. And after those sixty-two weeks, the anointed one will disappear and vanish. The army of a leader who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary, but its end will come through a flood. Desolation is decreed until the end of war. (JPS)