Reconstructing the Historical Jesus

Message 205 of 560 (617298) 05-27-2011 11:06 AM

Reply to: Message 204 by PaulK 05-27-2011 1:29 AM

For my purposes it doesn't really matter if there was a historical Jesus. I am curious though what it even means to make the claim that there was or was not a historical Jesus.

I can see this taking a variety of forms depending on what someone even means by "historical Jesus". When I first started following this discussion I tended to think of a historical Jesus as the real person referred to by the "based on a true story" tagline. What has surprised me a little is the seeming confusion about the distinction of how much of the Gospel story must match before we would give a label to someone as THE historical Jesus.

I am wondering if what we really have here is a continuum that is causing confusion. I could be understanding him wrong but it seems like Crash is on one end where most of the story must match while others are somewhere downstream from there.

What would we say of a guy named Jesus who started preaching, had disciples, pissed off the local spiritual leadership, but wasn't crucified. What that be enough of a congruence to call him THE historical Jesus?

What he need to have actually demonstrated supernatural powers? What if he really did exist but produced a different story and philosophy that was so drastically distorted that we could hardly pin him as the source?

I think that is what Crash is talking about when he mentions the "Santa Claus named Lou". It is a reasonable question to ask how much of the characteristics must match before we call someone what I think we all mean which is a historical basis for the mythology.

Going back to an earlier post of yours, you said:

I think are you going much too far here. Crash's style is very aggressive which may be obscuring his main point here but I think it is not the job of someone suggesting that Jesus was not real to bear the burden of proof. Just because Christianity is ~2000 years old does not give it some kind of grandfathered exception to the principles used in modern inquiry.

For those who believe a historic Jesus existed they must define very clearly what they mean by historic Jesus. Then the burden is on them to show that such a person actually existed.

What I believe Crash's fundamental point is that it is necessary for someone proposing a historical Jesus to remove so much of the character of Jesus from the gospels that it necessarily makes his existence impossible to show.

What then should be our tentative conclusion regarding the existence of a historical Jesus?

Message 210 of 560 (617332) 05-27-2011 3:45 PM

Reply to: Message 206 by Modulous 05-27-2011 12:22 PM

Well, I mean weight of evidence matters right? How many aspects of the character of a historical George Washington do you need to remove before you start to have doubt about his existence. Far more than is ever going to be reasonable.

Also, we are not talking about confirming the details of the life of Jesus we are talking about the basis for his existence to begin with. The truth of George Washington chopping down a tree is not apt to the existence of George Washington. The reality of the crucifixion of Jesus might actually be apt to his existence as the basis for the historical Jesus.

But there is a dependency relationship there. I need to be a little bit careful because I don't care to argue for the non-existence of a historical Jesus but I think it is fair to say that the Bible should be treated as one class of non-independent evidence.

So, these are your qualifications. But a slight tweak to any of these and you could have a case for matching the historical Jesus to any one of perhaps hundreds of roaming Cynic or Stoic preachers. So is our conclusion simply that ONE of these COULD have been the historical Jesus? I mean, that is fine with me, but I don't think that is what the people who are making a case for the historical Jesus are claiming.

Sure. But should the difficulty change our requirements for evidence?

Okay then let me make a proposition for you. Perhaps we should have the same confidence in the existence of a historical Jesus as we do that of a historical Heracles or Odysseus. All of them are equally attested by a non-primary, largely fictional collection of ancient writings. I don't think crashfrog or even Jon could necessarily disagree with that would they?

I have heard that argument before. The claim is that why would the early church, before the theology of sacrifice came into being, lie about Jesus' death. There are some subtleties to that but at the end of the day we are making conclusions on historicity based on a pure literary argument. I can't quite think of many other circumstances where we do that for anything else. It may be that we do and if you have some examples I would love to hear about them. I certainly am no historian.

I can imagine it being used in a supportive context but at the moment I don't see that argument being paired with any other more substantial cache of evidence. We know that ancient authors invented stories of people who ultimately died at the end of it. Even in the bible there is the story of Sampson. Is it your position that the evidence for a historical Sampson is roughly the same as it is for a historical Jesus?

Sure, and they perhaps have very good reasons for that. I think though that there is not enough information to claim that any certain position is the "default" though which is what is currently being argued.

Message 211 of 560 (617333) 05-27-2011 3:47 PM

Reply to: Message 207 by PaulK 05-27-2011 12:57 PM

But the reason I responded to you is because I believe that you are criticizing something that isn't his argument. I read crash as arguing for a different default position than the existence of a historical Jesus based only on the Bible. I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

I see you as attacking him for the positive claim that Jesus did not exist. That is something that no one can prove. I can't prove that a historical Jesus didn't exist anymore than I can prove that a historical Heracles or Odysseus didn't exist. But it certainly does seem that many people tend to lean toward a historical Jesus and not toward the others. Why?

And there is an explanation being offered. The explanation is that the Jesus story was useful fiction.

Yea. I just mentioned some. Heracles and Odysseus.

And more important perhaps are the reasons we think they are non-historical. It is because the only way we know about them is from writings that are known to be largely, if not totally, mythical and fictitious.

Look, I don't think it is totally unreasonable to say that we have an extremely low confidence hypothesis that the character of Jesus in the bible had a historical counterpart. But I also don't think it is unreasonable to say that the confidence is low enough that we should essentially call it zero.

Message 216 of 560 (617344) 05-27-2011 5:01 PM

Reply to: Message 212 by PaulK 05-27-2011 4:14 PM

I agree that the mythological content around those stories are more important. What I would like to know is what is different or beyond the mythological content of the Bible makes the historicity of Jesus more likely than that of Heracles or Odysseus?

You seem to think there is a difference enough to distinguish them. Is it just the timing?

Is being the son of Yahweh and walking on water more credible to historicity than being the son of Jupiter and slaying a hydra?

Certainly if he is claiming it to be true than the burden is on him. But how could he ever possibly prove the non-existence of something? I don't think crash is being that brazen. I believe the argument revolves around what should be considered the null hypothesis in this case.

I don't see any reason why we can't argue that Jesus' non-existence is a legitimate default position. Why can't we argue that is the default? I have seen nothing presented thus far that would put weak historicity above that of non-existence as a perfectly valid default.

I certainly seen a lot of passion over what is seemingly a trivial difference but I definitely reject the characterization of the arguments as "rubbish".

I very well could have missed where someone made the positive argument for the superiority of historicity as a default. Kindly explain to me exactly why a historical Jesus is a better null hypothesis to that of a fictional Jesus. To casually claim that one is an explanation while the other is not is simply not convincing.

Message 217 of 560 (617345) 05-27-2011 5:27 PM

Reply to: Message 215 by Modulous 05-27-2011 5:01 PM

Ok, fair enough.

What I meant was that the parts of the bible that speak to historicity seemingly are derivative works from a common source. Paul only barely gives weight to the gospels and they are all interdependent amongst each other. Beyond that the books seem to be more internally derived and not historic.

I didn't think so. But then I don't understand what that has anything to do with the issue. If anything it means we should be even MORE tentative in saying that something was historical.

Okay, what is the significant difference between the consideration of a historical Jesus versus a historical Moses?

I am okay with that. The only reason I jumped into the debate is because of claims that such a position is somehow "obviously" superior to that of non-existence. I personally think that the differences are trivial.

Message 234 of 560 (617783) 05-31-2011 11:18 AM

Reply to: Message 219 by PaulK 05-28-2011 5:49 AM

I most certainly not saying that we should pretend that the evidence does not exist.

Let me try this another way. Absent any evidence do you believe that the null hypothesis should be that there was no historical Jesus?

Do you then believe that the gospels are enough evidence to invalidate that hypothesis?

If so why? Where do our standards of evidence come from that says that prima facie evidence is enough to push us into a new paradigm?

These are honest questions. I am in fact trying to learn from you.

Thanks

Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

Message 235 of 560 (617788) 05-31-2011 11:30 AM

Reply to: Message 218 by Modulous 05-27-2011 6:36 PM

Well, maybe we should be more specific. I mainly consider the gospels to be the books that are relevant to this discussion. It was my understanding that scholars believe that Mark was first, Matthew and Luke derived from Mark + Q and perhaps a document of parables. I can't recall of the top of my head what I remember about John but I do remember some discussion about it also being derived.

What do you mean when you said, "not the consensus view of scholars"? Are you talking about other books of the NT? If so, how are those relevant to the historicity of Jesus? Paul doesn't give hardly a whit of detail of Jesus' life and it only gets more and more removed from there on.

Hardly a nugget is right. Should we not be skeptical of someone who outright admits never to have met a historical Jesus? I sense that I very well could be missing something here but I don't see how Paul is a very good source for a historical Jesus at all.

I am curious about this part. What sources are those? Who contemporary to Jesus writes about him counter to his agenda?

Message 236 of 560 (617789) 05-31-2011 11:37 AM

Reply to: Message 230 by Jon 05-31-2011 1:37 AM

I have no problem if you want to say that it is likely that Jesus derives from some roaming Jewish Cynic. I only question that, if that is true, that we should call that unknown person the "Historical Jesus".

Why? And how did you come up with the chances being close to zero?

Message 266 of 560 (617943) 05-31-2011 5:08 PM

Reply to: Message 241 by PaulK 05-31-2011 1:51 PM

Because I am asking what amount and/or quality of evidence do we demand before we abandon the null hypothesis.

Why not? Lets not get caught up in the terminology. Using a "null hypothesis" and applying evidence to it is how we rationally investigate every other aspect of the world. Why should we apply a different standard to history? Other historical sciences do not have this problem.

Why does that methodology negate the usefulness of a null hypothesis? Of course we should look at the evidence and look for the best explanation.

No it is not obvious at all. Keeping with an analogy to an experimental procedure, if there is a strong prior on the null hypothesis, it would take significantly more evidence to abandon the null hypothesis than it would with no prior.

If any tini tidbit of evidence should dramatically sway our conclusion, then we would have no basis in which to ground those conclusions. Are you familiar with Bayesian reasoning?

And we should be careful not to commit an appeal to tradition.

My point is that if we were starting from scratch, we would require a certain amount of evidence before we hold any particular conclusion other than non-existence. I don't think it is unreasonable to say that prima facie evidence is insufficient for abandoning the null hypothesis.

My question remains, why is it so abundantly clear to you that it should? Other than telling me that it is "obvious" I don't think you have addressed my concerns at all.

Thanks.

Message 271 of 560 (617964) 05-31-2011 6:05 PM

Reply to: Message 270 by Jon 05-31-2011 5:25 PM

No, there are always 2 explanations. That is the point that I am making. Science has progressed from Sherlock Holmes. Absent any evidence the default is that there was no Jesus. We then need to ask ourselves what evidence it would take to cause us to change that. Then we can apply the evidence we do have to see if it is up to par.

That is how, in the modern day and age, we investigate claims.

I am not claiming that this threshold for evidence has or has not been met. I am simply asking what the threshold should be.

Well, I think we already have 2 that we do in fact need to examine as I have stated above. It is simply not the case that there is only one choice.

And I think that is exactly backwards.

Just because a homeopathic remedy performs .05% better than a placebo in one particular trial does not mean that "water memory" becomes the default to "no water memory". "no water memory" is clearly the default and has a VERY strong prior on it because of what we know about physics and chemistry. One would need to demonstrate a significant effect of any homeopathic preparation before that prior would budge.

That is the kind of reasoning I am claiming needs to be used in this circumstances. I am asking why a modern inductive procedure such as the above is not preferable in this case or if it really is, what are the parameters?

Message 300 of 560 (620496) 06-17-2011 10:41 AM

Reply to: Message 296 by PaulK 06-17-2011 9:16 AM

It is perfectly possible, perhaps even likely, that the politics of the crucifixion blame are an artifact of the lateness of the gospels.

Its hard to keep track of all the Biblical edits but I seem to recall some that were designed to soften the imposition that it was Rome who killed Jesus. So while I have come to see the presence of some counter-intuitively motivated writing may be a good argument for historicity, I don't think this is one of those cases.

Thanks,

Message 301 of 560 (620497) 06-17-2011 10:47 AM

Reply to: Message 299 by ScientificBob 06-17-2011 10:13 AM

Thats not quite what the argument is. Its not just a question of, "Why would they make that up?"

Its more like, "Why would they make that up when it seems like doing so would be counter productive to their purpose?"

The inability to answer the question doesn't prove historicity, but it is still an important question and it does suggest that there was something more than JUST story telling.

Message 308 of 560 (620507) 06-17-2011 11:11 AM

Reply to: Message 302 by Jon 06-17-2011 10:48 AM

I am curious, where did you get this information?

I am not saying you are wrong, just that I have never head this before. Do you have some reference about how common 'Messiahs' where and that they were "almost all" executed by the Romans?

Thanks,

Message 319 of 560 (620527) 06-17-2011 12:58 PM

Reply to: Message 304 by Jon 06-17-2011 10:58 AM

My point is that there are mixed historical motivations for Roman involvement and/or blame that don't necessarily speak to the counter-intuitiveness of the story telling.

Early on, the Christian cults were not necessarily integrated with the gentiles except for Paul. Paul seems to have no clue about the gospel story details for reasons not the least of which they hadn't been written yet. There would be no disincentive for blaming the Romans since they were not trying to court Roman favor....yet.

A more convincing example is simply that Jesus died at all. The purported fact of his death caused a disarray of explanations which may be more telling.

I think that might SUGGEST historicity but along the lines of what I was arguing before, I am not sure it is enough to overcome a strong basis otherwise.

So I am not trying to disagree with that particular tool of historical observation, I am just questioning this particular use of it and how strong of an inference it is.

Message 320 of 560 (620528) 06-17-2011 1:09 PM

Reply to: Message 313 by Jon 06-17-2011 12:09 PM

Most of the others weren't executed in the same sense as Jesus. They led rebellions that were certain to give the Romans a reason to care. Those are in no way like Jesus and refer more to what the Jews considered a real messiah to be, someone who would liberate them.

I think you would have more legs to stand on if you referred to the Stoic/Cynic traditions to which someone later mysticised into a messiah via someone like the author of Matthew. Those guys were perhaps "common" in the sense I understood you to mean and you could at least start there when looking for a historical Jesus.