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Author | Topic: Eyewitness To Jesus? The Gospel Authors | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Yes. The historical support for Jesus would lie somewhere between that for Pythagoras and that for Socrates. quote:Homer provides a good contrast in the other direction. The support for Jesus' existence is much better than anything we have for Homer, for whom we have nothing even remotely contemporaneous, while for Jesus the earliest evidence comes from Paul, writing about 20 years after his death. Not an eyewitness, but someone who did meet Jesus' brothers.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:You're suggesting the gospels were written by non-Christians?
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Gotta watch those second-hand references. Where did you get the idea that he wrote a history of Galilee? As far as I can tell, Justus wrote a history of Jewish kings. Not exactly the circles that Jesus was supposed to have moved in. quote:Why on earth should any of these writers, none of whom lived in Palestine, even have heard of a minor religious figure with a small following in Palestine, much less mentioned him? quote:Paul's letters and Hebrews both contain clear references to a physical Jesus; only the most desperate, twisted readings of them would suggest otherwise. That doesn't guarantee that Jesus actually existed of course, but Paul at least was in close enough contact with Jesus' milieu that he provides quite good evidence that there was such a person. (What he doesn't do is provide much information about Jesus' life or teachings.) quote:No, that's quite wrong. The gospels are tradionally dated to mid to late 1st century. They are dated by virtually all contemporary scholars (of whatever religous persuasion) to late first century, or possibly (in the case of John) very early 2nd century. The earliest surviving evidence for one of the gospels is clearly the use of Mark by Matthew and Luke, both late 1st cent. The earliest non-Biblical Christian writings that can be roughly dated (I Clement and the letters of Ignatius, the first around 100 and the second ten or twenty years later) both contain repeated references to the gospels (or possibly, in the case of Clement, to similar traditions to those that were included by the gospel writers). quote:This bears about as much resemblence to real New Testament scholarship as creationism does to science. Any claim that the gospels weren't written until 100 years after the death of Jesus is simply crackpottery.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Yes. Mark's gospel includes an empty tomb, and is firmly dated to the first century.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:What Roman tabulation? Pilate, a Roman official, barely registers in Roman histories. Minor foreign religous figures are highly unlikely to have gotten that much attention. quote:A bit tendentious there, aren't you? Recast that as, "Do you honestly believe that if word came around about a man whose followers would later claim was capable of raising people from the dead, it wouldn't get documented everywhere?", and see how unimpressive it becomes. Even substitute "whose followers claimed was capable", and it's still remarkably unremarkable that people elsewhere didn't pay any attention. Miracle workers were not exactly a novelty, you know. quote:As best as we can tell, Josephus noticed. Most (but not all) Josephus scholars consider the reference to "James, the brother of Jesus, who is called 'Messiah'" to be genuine. It's a probabilistic judgment, but it's the best that can be done. It's hard to think of anyone else who would be likely to have either noticed or mentioned Jesus.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Right. The dating isn't entirely guesswork. Ignatius, who died no later than 117, quoted Matthew, who in turn reworked material from Mark. Allowing time for both gospels to propagate before they'd likely be used by others, Mark pretty clearly had to be written in the first century. The suggestion that it was written ca. 130, on the other hand, would seem to require time travel.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:What bearing does that have on the quality of the historical evidence available? quote:Say what? Who said anything about the reliability of manuscripts? Is Josh McDowell whispering in your ear? We have no records from any near contemporary of Homer, while we do have such records from near contemporaries of Jesus. That is a fact, and it has nothing to do with the date of manuscripts. quote:Paul says Jesus was physically ("according to the flesh") a descendant of David. That is not a phrase that can be applied easily to a spiritual being (especially when he describes himself as being Jewish with the same phrase). quote:Have you actually read Paul? He frequently mentions the death and resurrection of Jesus, both of which are kind of prominent in the gospels. He doesn't seem to be very interested in most of the events of Jesus' life, but he does mention Cephas (Peter), James, John, the brothers of Jesus and "the twelve". Who else should he have mentioned? He mentions the teachings of Jesus -- not very often, but he does mention them. (The most obvious reference is when he quotes Jesus about divorce.) Of your list, the only one he actually doesn't mention is the miracles. Given Paul's interests, it's not clear why he would want to, but it's certainly reasonable to state that Paul provides no evidence that Jesus was known to him as a miracle worker. quote:None of which has any bearing on the fact that Paul includes the brothers of Jesus among those pillars (i.e. those already recognized as leaders by the followers of Jesus), and that he says he met them. The fact that Paul didn't like Jesus' brothers is hardly evidence that they didn't exist. No one is arguing that Paul's visions of Jesus constitute historical evidence. What's important is that both Paul and those he was writing to (including some who had been followers of Jesus longer then he had) thought of Jesus as someone who had brothers, and that those brothers really existed. Trying to turn this Jesus into a purely spiritual figure requires considerable contortion.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:And I pointed out that you're wrong. Your attempted redating of the gospels is simply implausible. (Heck, we've got a manuscript of John's gospel that's probably earlier than the supposed writing of the gospels.) quote:I looked at it. What's Ignatius doing in the 130s? Why are Paul's references to the crucifixion and the Last Supper "uncertain" or "informal"? What happened to Paul's citation of Jesus' teaching? What happened to Ignatius and Clement's quotations from the gospels? quote:Oh my goodness. An apology is a work addressed to someone outside the faith -- you know, someone you'd have to define terms for. And of course "gospel" is singular. "Gospel" has always had the primary meaning of the message about Jesus; the designation of the four Gospels as such is secondary. What text are you using, anyway? This is the only reference I can find to "gospel" in a translation of the Greek text:
Then when the Son of God was pleased to come upon the earth, they received him with wanton violence and betrayed him into the hands of Pilate the Roman governor; and paying no respect to his good deeds and the countless miracles he wrought among them, they demanded a sentence of death by the cross. And they perished by their own transgression; for to this day they worship the one God Almighty, but not according to knowledge. For they deny that Christ is the Son of God; and they are much like to the heathen, even although they may seem to make some approach to the truth from which they have removed themselves. So much for the Jews.
XV. Now the Christians (1) trace their origin from the Lord Jesus Christ. And He is acknowledged by the Holy Spirit to be the son of the most high God, who came down from heaven for the salvation of men. And being born of a pure virgin, unbegotten and immaculate, He assumed flesh and revealed himself among men that He might recall them to Himself from their wander-lug after many gods. And having accomplished His wonderful dispensation, by a voluntary choice He tasted death on the cross, fulfilling an august dispensation. And after three days He came to life again and ascended into heaven. And if you would read, O King, you may judge the glory of His presence from the holy gospel writing, as it is called among themselves. He had twelve disciples, who after His ascension to heaven went forth into the provinces of the whole world, and declared His greatness. As for instance, one of them traversed the countries about us, proclaiming the doctrine of the truth. From this it is, that they who still observe the righteousness enjoined by their preaching are called Christians.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
quote:Here's Photius's description:
"I have read the chronology of Justus of Tiberias, whose title is this, [The Chronology of] the Kings of Judah which succeeded one another. This [Justus] came out of the city of Tiberias in Galilee. He begins his history from Moses, and ends it not till the death of Agrippa, the seventh [ruler] of the family of Herod, and the last king of the Jews; who took the government under Claudius, had it augmented under Nero, and still more augmented by Vespasian. He died in the third year of Trajan, where also his history ends. He is very concise in his language, and slightly passes over those affairs that were most necessary to be insisted on; and being under the Jewish prejudices, as indeed he was himself also a Jew by birth, he makes not the least mention of the appearance of Christ, or what things happened to him, or of the wonderful works that he did. He was the son of a certain Jew, whose name was Pistus. He was a man, as he is described by Josephus, of a most profligate character; a slave both to money and to pleasures. In public affairs he was opposite to Josephus; and it is related, that he laid many plots against him; but that Josephus, though he had his enemy frequently under his power, did only reproach him in words, and so let him go without further punishment. He says also, that the history which this man wrote is, for the main, fabulous, and chiefly as to those parts where he describes the Roman war with the Jews, and the taking of Jerusalem."
Photius is obviously miffed that Jesus wasn't mentioned, but it isn't likely that he had a reliable perspective on how Jesus would have been viewed by his contemporaries, is it? If you can conclude that a chronology of the Kings of Judah from Moses to Agrippa should have mentioned someone who wasn't a king (or a political figure at all) and who didn't live in Judah, you practice an unusual form of inference.
quote:What did Philo write at length about Jewish history? Which work do you think should have mentioned Jesus? Judging from Josephus, John the Baptist was a more significant public figure than Jesus. How many times does Philo mention John? (The answer is zero.) quote:You didn't answer my question. Why would Seneca, living in Rome when he wasn't in exile, have heard of Jesus' teachings? What other aspects of Jewish culture does he show an awareness of? quote:Exactly one of those writes should have mentioned Jesus: Josephus. And most Josephus scholars (including most non-Christian ones) have concluded that he did mention him. The others have zero evidentiary value. Apply the same test I suggested earlier: how many of these authors mention John the Baptist? Josephus, and that's it. (By the way, how do you know that Philo spent time in Jerusalem?) quote:I've already provided one for Paul. For Hebrews: 5:7 "During the days of Jesus' flesh, he offered up prayers and petitions." 2:14 "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity [Gr: he likewise participated/shared in them]." 12:3 "Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men..."
quote:And your claim is wrong, since the author of Matthew was a Christian author, wrote before the early 2nd century, and showed detailed knowledge of the content of the gospels. What authors are there who could have displayed a knowledge of the Gospels before the early 2nd century? Paul (and probably the author of Hebrews) wrote before the Gospels were written. Other NT writers (not counting the Gospel writers) wrote at unknown dates. The next writing we have is right around the beginning of the 2nd century. quote: There are a number of lines of evidence that indicate that Matthew was written well before 130. Ignatius (whose letters, despite your rejection of them, are nearly universally accepted by the relevant experts) is one. Polycarp's clear quotation of Matthew is another. The date of Polycarp's letter was probably around 110-120. Personally, I find it pretty implausible that Polycarp, who was 60 years old in 130, wouldn't have noticed new writings suddenly appeared that didn't mesh with existing stories about Jesus. There's also Papias, who wrote sometime in the period 120-140; he reports traditions about the origin of written gospels, placing them in the generation of the apostles. Whether the traditions are accurate or not is unimportant; what matters is that by the time of Papias, there were already written gospels (attributed to Mark and Matthew) that were old, old enough to have accumulated traditions.
quote:Where did you get these numbers? I just went through Clement's letter to the Corinthians, and I find one explicit reference to Paul's writings (specifically to one of his letters to the Corinthians) and two explicit references to the words of Jesus (both quite similar to material in the Gospels); in addition there is one string of quotations from Hebrews and a reference to the parable of the sower, plus a number of phrases echoing gospel and Pauline material. The reference to Paul's epistle is, "Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the apostle. What did he first write to you in the 'beginning of the gospel'? Truly he wrote to you in the Spirit about himself and Cephan and Apollos." The two references to gospel material are introduced by "Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus, which he spoke as he taught gentleness and patience", and "Remember the words of Jesus our Lord, for he said . . .". None of the references in Clement are particularly useful as historical evidence for Jesus, but the phrasing of the first strongly suggests that Clement is thinking of a physical Jesus teaching in the flesh. Is your position that everyone forgot about the spiritual Jesus in the 35 or 40 years between Paul and Clement's letter, even though some individuals almost certainly lived through the entire period? That a spirit being in the heavenly realms was converted into a physical person living in Palestine in less than a single lifetime, that this happened in the minds of Christians spread throughout the Mediterranean, and that no one noticed or commented on the change? I find that a tad implausible. I also note that your claim was that there was no evidence that any of the Gospel stories or events were known earlier than the 2nd century. Since Clement is late 1st century, and knows stories of Jesus teaching, your claim would seem to be wrong.
quote:That the letters are authentic is the consensus of current scholarship, or at least that was the situation in 1992, judging from Holmes's edition of The Apostolic Fathers. The consesus can always be wrong, of course, but you have given no justification for overthrowing it in this case. (The existence of Ignatius is established by the letter of Polycarp, which refers to him.) quote:My mistake. I thought that when you wrote
In sum, the Gospels are stories, written a century later
you were saying that the Gospels were stories, written a century later. What exactly have I misunderstood about that sentence?
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
If you read the message I was replying to you will see that Sfs was responding to someone else's claim that the lack of evidence about Jesus was strong evidence against the historical validity of the Gospels.
As far as I can remember, I've been responding to claims that there is no historical evidence for the existence of Jesus, and also to claims that the gospel material and the idea of a physical Jesus arose much later than Paul. I don't recall defending the historicity of the gospels per se, and I certainly haven't suggested that everything in them is historically accurate. In particular, taking any ancient document's estimate of the size of a crowd at face value would be pretty silly. I doubt we have the data to determine how large a following Jesus had. How large a following do you think it would have taken for Jesus to count as a significant religious figure to someone like Seneca living in Rome?
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
What I'd like to know is what you consider to be the irreducible core of information we have at present about a historical Jesus.
PaulK's answer was a good one. An expert might offer a slightly longer list, but I'm not an expert. I vaguely recall E.P. Sanders (noted for his role in placing Jesus in his Jewish context) included Jesus' selection of 12 disciples as one the core facts, but I could be misremembering.
There are a few who doubt that Paul existed and regard his letters as being created by later church fathers such as Eusubius who seems to come in for a great deal of suspicion by a few contributors at JesusMysteries@yahoogroups.com.
Since we have a copy of most of Paul's letters that dates from earlier than Eusebius, that seems like an odd theory.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
Justus of Tiberias
I'm arguing that a work described as a history of kings is likely to focus on kings, and that the absence of someone who wasn't a king is hardly surprising.
Are you arguing that ONLY Kings would be found in the work?
But then, Moses was NOT a King, was he?
Not by name, but he was certainly the political leader of the Jewish people, so including him would be appropriate.
Jesus WAS seen as a political figure by some
Who? Who thinks Jesus was a political leader of Judah?
Many of Philo's works were semi-historical (e.g. on Abel, Cain, Noah, Moses, Abraham, Joseph.)
This is really reaching. Commentary on scripture has little to do with contemporary history-writing (especially given Philo's tendencies as an interpreter).
Two in particular cover recent history - Flaccus, On The Embassy. Both concerned with the conflict in his own country, and in which he participated. He did not write about Palestinian history. I'll repeat my previous question: how many times does Philo mention John the Baptist? Why should he have mentioned Jesus more often than John?
Seneca
This is exceedingly weak. I think it entirely possible that Seneca had heard of Christians. Why should he have mentioned Jesus, even if he knew who he was? As for Peter and Paul, I have no idea whether they were in Rome or not, but if they were, what of it? Is it your position that Seneca should have mentioned every person who was known to someone who was visiting Rome?
"Why would Seneca, living in Rome when he wasn't in exile, have heard of Jesus' teachings?" Well, Christians argue Nero had heard of Christians by then.Supposedly Paul and Peter were in Rome by this period. Again, it is not certain that he would have heard of, or mentioned Jesus - but its another silence by someone would could, perhaps should, have mentioned Jesus.
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
I agree with Doherty that this document does not contain references to a historical Jesus - the quotes you gave are tiny snippets taken out of the spiritual context of the letter. I refer you to -
I've looked at it, and at a number of his other pages. I haven't been able to find the references to spiritual beings who take on flesh and blood while not becoming historical. Could you point them out, please? I did note that Doherty discusses Paul's description of Jesus' descent "according to the flesh" without mentioning Paul's use of the identical term in the same letter, since Paul's clear meaning there would have demolished his argument. Does Doherty mention that item elsewhere? Because if he doesn't, I find it hard to see his approach as intellectually honest.
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Matthew & Gospels
Yes, I'm really claiming that Matthew's use of Mark is evidence that Mark already existed. There's nothing obviously silly about such an argument, so why are you suggesting that there is?
"And your claim is wrong, since the author of Matthew was a Christian author, wrote before the early 2nd century, and showed detailed knowledge of the content of the gospels. " Are you REALLY claiming a Gospel as proof for the Gospels?
So, when is the first clear reference our written G.Matthew? "What authors are there who could have displayed a knowledge of the Gospels before the early 2nd century? " How about the first century of Christian writings? The first dozen or so books written by Christians show NO mention of the Gospels or their events (not counting the original core of spiritual crucifixion and resurrection) -Hebrews (60s) Colossians (70s) James (80s) 1 John (80s) 2 Thessalonians (80s) Ephesians (90s) 1 Peter (90s) Revelation (90s) Clement (90s) Jude (100s) Didakhe (100s) 2 John (120s) 3 John (120s) Not one of these works shows clear knowledge of the Gospels or their contents (baring vague references to spiritual events.) A few points. First, the dates you have assigned to most of these books are pure guesswork; several of them could easily have been written before Matthew. Second, one of the books, Clement, quotes material that sounds very much like Matthew. So either Matthew already existed, or gospel material that sounded very much like the canonical gospels was well known. Either way, it certainly makes dubious any claim that the gospel stories were second century creations. (I already pointed out how Clement's manner of quoting strongly suggests that he has a historical Jesus in mind.) On your more general point, that these books don't mention anything about a non-spiritual Jesus, I think you're mistaken. I John 4:2. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. (Similaly in II John 2:7.) I Peter 2:21-24. To this you wre called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. "He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth." When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree." Can you find anything from a mystery religion that sounds at all like either of these passages? (Note also that the Pastoral epistles, which many date to around 100, contain clear references to gospel materials.)
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
The Ignatiana is notoriously corrupt - 8 letters are considered spurious, the rest come in several versions of unclear provenance. Their authenticity has been questioned for centuries - Dallaeus (1666), Lardner (1743), Joly 1979, Jortin (1751), Mosheim (1755), Griesbach (1768), Rosenmller (1795), Neander (1826),
None of which affects the fact that the virtually unanimous consensus among the relevant experts (i.e. professional scholars, not people who write web pages, and counting only those who wrote within the last hundred years) is that the text of the seven Ignatian letters preserved in the middle recension is genuine, and dates from earlier than 120.
Killen (1886)http://www.depts.drew.edu/jhc/KillenIgnatius.pdf Dutch radicals argued they were spurious :Seite nicht gefunden – Hermann Detering Ignatius from 130s Bernard Muller makes a convincing case that the letters date to about the 130s -http://www.geocities.com/b_d_muller/ignatius.html I agree with Bernard - these letters were written c.135 One author even argues a specific forgery conspiracy -http://www.thecosmiccontext.de/christianity/Ignatius1.html Furthermore, the connection between Ignatius and G.Matthew is NOT clear - at no time does he specifically name or quote a written Gospel - he uses the early form of "gospel" (singular, un-named) meaning the good news. His failure to distinguish between these two, shows he has no knowledge of a written Gospel. He does give a few phrases similar to Gospel sayings, but in general shows only little knowledge of Gospel events.
"[I am] totally convinced with regard to our Lord that he is truly of the family of David with respect to human descent, Son of God with respect to the divine will and power, truly born of a virgin, baptized by John in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by him, truly nailed in the flesh for us under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrach."Sure sounds to me like he knew the basics of the gospel story. (Oh, and note that he uses the same phrase as Paul for Jesus' physical descent from David, the one that Doherty finds so ambiguous.)
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sfs Member (Idle past 2564 days) Posts: 464 From: Cambridge, MA USA Joined: |
our modern Gospels only took form LATE 2nd century
Then why do we have a copy of the gospel of John that dates from early in the second century?
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