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

[Doug Shaver]

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?

Simply because I don't believe we have such a precedent in the first place, I'm not sure there is an easy answer to your first question

I don't see how that follows.

I'm very sure that unicorns do not exist, and the reason I am sure is that (a) I know exactly what a unicorn would look like, (b) there is good reason to believe that somebody would have seen a unicorn if they existed, and (c) there are no credible reports of any unicorn sightings.

Now let's suppose I'd never seen a picture of a unicorn and was in all other respects ignorant of their alleged appearance. Suppose I know nothing about unicorns except two things: They are some kind of animal, and they are widely regarded as imaginary. Now suppose a friend of mine, whom I know to be generally trustworthy, returns from a vacation in some wilderness and says, "You won't believe this, but I saw a unicorn." I say, "That's impossible. Unicorns don't exist." He says, "Sure they do. Look at this picture I took." So I look, and it's a picture of something that, to me, looks like a horse. So I say, "That's not a unicorn. That's a horse." My friend says, "Well, unicorns do look a lot like horses, but this is not a horse. It's a unicorn." I respond, "No, it's not a unicorn." He asks, "How can you be so sure? Do you even know what a unicorn looks like?" And I reply, "Since I don't believe unicorns exist, I'm not sure what they would look like." At this point of the discussion, I suspect you'll agree that my skepticism is not well justified.

The way to address these issues is to point out, first, that the secondary sources all treat the gospels as history.

What did those secondary sources know about who wrote the gospels and why they wrote them? What do those sources tell us about their own sources?

the reception of the gospels as history would seem to suggest that they were intended to be history

It doesn't suggest that to me. I've seen too many instances of reader reaction to a story being very different from what the author intended the reaction to be. And those instances include cases of readers thinking a key plot element was factual when it was purely a product of the author's imagination.

Furthermore, and more importantly, since the gospels are Hellenistic Jewish works, they ought to be compared to other Hellenistic Jewish works, and to my knowledge, there was not much of a market for Jewish fiction in the first cent.

Why the switch from "Hellenistic Jewish works" to "Jewish fiction"? Anyway, I don't regard the gospels as any kind of Jewish literature.

Of course there were fictions written, and fictional characters invented, such as Daniel and Esther, but these figures were then incorporated into the Jewish historical narrative

Daniel and Esther are good analogies: works of fiction that came to be regarded as factual history. Incorporation into a historical narrative does not turn fiction into nonfiction.

(Actually, in the case of Daniel, he may very well have been an actual person—there are "Daniels" mentioned in Ezekiel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles).

The mere fact that a person by that name really existed is not evidence for the historical existence of a fictional character having that name.

In other words, it would be difficult if not impossible to demonstrate an intent on the part of the author for his work to be received as fiction in this climate.

The inclusion of a disclaimer like "This is a work of fiction" is a very modern convention, yes. But if a substantial portion of a narrative is prima facie unbelievable, it becomes reasonable to ask why any of it should be believed, and "Because you can't prove it didn't happen" is an inadequate response.

The burden of proof I would suggest is squarely on the claimant who believes this literature to be completely fabricated to demonstrate why this should be the case.

Why? Why should I assume "True until proven false"? Why is there no burden on those who believe there is some historical truth in the gospels?

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.

Disagree with what exactly?

With the claim that the gospels contain enough semiticisms to justify an inference that they must have been written by Jews.

I would need to hear an effective counter-argument that hasn't already been widely debunked.

I have no idea which if any counterarguments have been debunked, but I do know the difference between rebutting an argument and refuting it. And I assume that when you say "debunked," you mean "refuted."

[Doug Shaver]

The common presentation in Carrier's and Doherty's view—as I understand it—holds to the idea of a dying, rising cosmic figure who was naturalised in the gospels, and 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.

It is not the only one, but it is certainly the one text that Carrier forwards as the best evidence to make his argument.

You said he used it as an illustration. Illustrations are not intended as proof.

I will post a critique I have written in response to Carrier from another forum below.

I appreciate the effort. Regrettably, I lack the expertise necessary to evaluate it.

So, what we have here is Carrier’s utterly vapid interpretation of a text that he really does not understand, as a means to prop up his feeble theory of a messianic expectation in Second Temple Judaism that never existed.

I have read most of what Carrier has written in defense of mythicism and I've watched quite a few of his lectures and debates on YouTube. There is no way that his argument stands or falls depending on his interpretation of 11Q13.

[Palaeogrammatos]

I'm not sure that I am expressing myself clearly enough

Why the switch from "Hellenistic Jewish works" to "Jewish fiction"? Anyway, I don't regard the gospels as any kind of Jewish literature.

This is a problem. The gospels all share in common clear indications from terminology, to rhetorical and literary structures that strongly suggest their situation within a first cent. Jewish context.

Daniel and Esther are good analogies: works of fiction that came to be regarded as factual history. Incorporation into a historical narrative does not turn fiction into nonfiction.

I agree, but this is not really my argument. I am arguing a couple of things here: First, the gospels are Hellenistic Jewish literature, and within their Jewish context the broader contours of the stories that they tell do not appear anything similar to the hero-legends from Second Temple Judaism which we know to be fictions. The situation of a Galilean peasant who usurps the Torah, defies the temple, is arrested, charged and then executed is historically plausible, but not at all believable as an invented story told and then written down by those who could actually read and write. The combination of literary features and the specific content of the gospels is the indication that these stories are based on the lives of real people and actual events.

The mere fact that a person by that name really existed is not evidence for the historical existence of a fictional character having that name.

It's really besides the point—I was merely pointing to the possibility, and this doesn't make a difference one way or the other to my argument.

The inclusion of a disclaimer like "This is a work of fiction" is a very modern convention, yes. But if a substantial portion of a narrative is prima facie unbelievable, it becomes reasonable to ask why any of it should be believed, and "Because you can't prove it didn't happen" is an inadequate response.

At this point I wonder if you are misunderstanding me to be arguing that the Gospels are accurate accounts of history, and that is not at all what I am suggesting. I would counter here that it is historically irresponsible to dismiss the historicity of every part of a narrative on the basis that "a substantial portion of a narrative is prima facie unbelievable." The fact is that ancient histories were told differently than modern ones: they all contained elaborations, they were all strongly agenda driven; they were all prone to valorise their principle characters. If we merely dismissed all ancient narratives that are prima facie unbelievable as complete fabrications, then we would effectively have a difficult time accepting most of our sources. The answer to your question is that practically ALL ancient historiography contained (occasionally substantial amounts of) impossible bits. The point is not that the gospels are to be accepted as prima facie believable so much that they ought not be dismissed in toto because they contain unbelievable claims.

Why? Why should I assume "True until proven false"? Why is there no burden on those who believe there is some historical truth in the gospels?

The expectation is not that you will assume "true until proven false." The argument is rather "reasonable until demonstrated to be unlikely." History is all about establishing historical probabilities. Like all historical investigations, the topic of the historical Jesus is one that depends upon mounting a positive argument that does not purport any certainty about the existence of Jesus, but rather that it is historically more plausible that the man Jesus existed than it is that he was invented and mythologized.

With the claim that the gospels contain enough semiticisms to justify an inference that they must have been written by Jews.

It is not just semiticisms, although these do present a convincing argument. Rather, there are also numerous literary and rhetorical conventions to show this. The kind of intimate familiarity that the Gospels have with the nuances of Jewish religion and culture are so strong that it is natural to treat them as Jewish. On the contrary, I would argue that it is much more difficult to account for these things from the perspective that these texts are somehow not Jewish.

[Palaeogrammatos]

I have read most of what Carrier has written in defense of mythicism and I've watched quite a few of his lectures and debates on YouTube. There is no way that his argument stands or falls depending on his interpretation of 11Q13.

No. Carrier's argument either stands or falls on the evidence. Without his interpretation of 11Q13—along with his mis-reading of Tg. Jonathan and misunderstanding of Jewish messianism—he doesn't have any.

[Cornelius]

2. The evidence for his existence is not nearly as close to being conclusive as the conventional thinking imagines it to be. Every document attesting to his existence is susceptible to reasonable doubt as to its historical reliability.

That's not exactly the case. Every document has aspects of it considered legendary embellishments, but these documents themselves (Paul's letters and the Gospels, as well as some early documents like the Gospel of Thomas) present very powerful evidence that there was a historical person named Jesus who had a movement. About 75% of ancient Greek philosophers would disappear if we used the rationale that a document (sometimes only an anecdote is present for a philosopher!) that has legends means everything the document mentions is suspicious.

I will admit that Tacitus, Mara Bar Serapion and other early sources cannot be trusted as independent testimony about the existence of Jesus. However, it is impossible that the entire long passage in Josephus is forged and the Arabic version of it shows it probably wasn't entirely a forgery. It is entirely unheard of a person invented within a decade of his movement [Paul attests in Galatians 1-2 that he persecuted Christians approximately 15 years before writing Galatians which he wrote c.54).

3. In particular, I think it reasonable to believe that the canonical gospels, which are the nearest thing we have to primary evidence, were not intended by their authors to be works of history or biography, but rather as works of fiction. I further believe that, regardless of their authors' intentions, they were probably not written, or at least did not exist in their present form, earlier than the second century.

That is completely impossible. 1) No one would have taken the Gospels as history if they were intended as fiction - like the author of the Acts of Paul and Thecla, everyone would have found out and dismissed them as forgeries. 2) Matthew presents arguments for Jesus' resurrection in the face of the then-current Jewish theory of grave robbery (Matt. 28:11-15). Whether you believe him or not, he obviously intended to answer a real claim by the non-Christian Jews and was thus obviously not writing fiction purposefully. As for the date, since Matthew and Luke depend on Mark, and Matthew is quoted by Ignatius c.115 AD, it is unlikely the Gospels are 2nd century compositions. The John Rylands fragment of John being found in Egypt dating to c.125 AD means the Gospel cannot post-date 100 as it was most likely written in Greece or Asia Minor and needed time to spread to Egypt.

4. I do accept a first-century origin for that portion of the Pauline corpus that is generally regarded as authentic, but I also think it has been more substantially redacted than is generally believed.

If there was any redaction of the Pauline corpus it would have easily been reflected in the MSS tradition. This is abundantly clear from the Johannine Coma and the Doxology of Romans, as well as the Pericope Adulterae.

Even so, taken as a whole, it seems inconsistent to me with what would have been written by someone who believed that (a) Jesus had recently lived in Palestine,

Taken as a whole, Paul's letters occasionally but clearly mention the historical Jesus (Gal. 3:13, 4:4; Rom. 1:1-4). The absence of an overabundance of historical information regarding Jesus is because of the urgency to address the much more important for his audience spiritual problems. It is only with hindsight bias that we should expect much more and if Bultmann is to be believed, Hellenistic Christians weren't very much interested in historical information anyway, which is why the one letter that contains the most references to Jesus' earthly life is the letter to the Hebrews.

(b) his preaching was the foundation upon which the author's religion was built

This old canard is not only irritating as it's usually stated without any confirmation, as here, but because there's all the evidence against it. Paul lived within living memory of Jesus and almost all the Apostles were alive when he wrote the 7 letters universally acknowledged as his. Galatians, one of those seven, clearly notes (Chs. 1-2) how he met with the Jerusalem church whose leaders confirmed his Gospel as true and from God. If Paul would have made anything up, there was every opportunity for his numerous enemies, like those he combats in Galatians, to go over there and dispute him and not focus on the Mosaic Law being necessary or rumors about Paul still practicing it [Gal. 5:11] or for the Christians of his churches to meet with the Jerusalem church (like the wealthy couple - Priscilla and Aquila who constantly moved around). It seems that the only things the Judaizers that he combats in Galatians came to say was just about that, or else we'd hear more as even this seems to have riled Paul up (Gal. 5:12).

As we know from Galatians, members from the Jerusalem church could easily appear as far as Asia Minor and members from other churches would have eventually spread more than rumors about Paul (such as him practicing circumcision, etc). It's utterly impossible for one man to derail within such proximity the entire Christian world, when there were so few to derail and so many witnesses that knew the historical Jesus (1 Cor. 15). It's also very difficult to believe he would change from a persecutor to a defender of the faith in the face of numerous dangers all for his own lies - never really doing it for money (2 Cor. 8, etc) or power. When Marcion attempted the same thing 100 years later, he was kicked out of Rome. He went to found his own sect/religion in a remote corner of Asia Minor where there was no resistance to his teachings like that in Rome or Palestine.

(c) he was unjustly executed by Roman officials at the urging of Jewish priests

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 is sufficient evidence that you haven't even really read the Pauline corpus. And the theories of interpolation for those verses is immediately shot down by the MSS record which makes any argument weak and specious without its support.

and (d) certain men whom the author names had been among Jesus' disciples.

Well that's a rather weak and unhistorical way of looking at the issue. The traditions are unanimous, whether Pauline or not, and his testimony in Galatians 1-2 is invaluable due to its early date as well as what Ehrman calls, "off the cuff" comments. Simply put, there's no way for Paul to invent these things 25 years after Jesus and if you take off your biased glasses, you would have no choice but to accept Peter, John, and James, whom Paul names, as historical disciples of Jesus'.

I see the same inconsistency in the canonical non-Pauline epistles and in all noncanonical Christian literature that seems likely to have been written before the later part of the second century.

If you had a good reason to see anything, your argument would have had a lot more detail.

5. There is no cogent argument for the authenticity of any Josephan reference to Jesus of Nazareth. All other early non-Christian references to Jesus are void of any information that the writers would not have obtained just by hearing what second-century Christians had to say about the origins of their religion. They are therefore not evidence about Jesus but about the beliefs of some second-century Christians.

While this is true of Tacitus, Suetonius, Mara Bar Serapion, and any other non-Jewish source that wouldn't have cared about facts for Jewish issues, the Josephan reference to Jesus is hard to deny in its entirety. The Arabic text of Josephus that was discovered some time ago shows that the Christian interpolations did not entirely invent the long passage about Jesus. If the entire thing had been a forgery, there would have been a much longer passage glorifying Jesus, but it makes more sense for someone to "fix up" an already existing short paragraph.

There are several reasons, but I think the primary one is that, to put it in Kuhnian terms, the acceptance of Jesus' nonexistence involves a colossal paradigm shift, even for scholars with no religious commitments. There is no way that lots of people are going to change their minds about this anytime soon.

Probably because the arguments spiral out into lunacy. I can clearly remember how frustrating it is to debate specious, wild claims when I decided to prove this guy at the infidels forum wrong about Christianity being invented by Eusebius [and Constantine or something] in the 4th century.

[Doug Shaver]

I can clearly remember how frustrating it is to debate specious, wild claims when I decided to prove this guy at the infidels forum wrong about Christianity being invented by Eusebius [and Constantine or something] in the 4th century.

If you remember him, you should also remember how frequently I attacked his arguments.

To hold people like him up as typical of mythicists makes about as much sense as claiming that snake-handling cults are typical of Christianity. The guy we're talking about is not even a mythicist. He is a conspiracy theorist.

I'll address the rest of your post a little later.

[Doug Shaver]

I have read most of what Carrier has written in defense of mythicism and I've watched quite a few of his lectures and debates on YouTube. There is no way that his argument stands or falls depending on his interpretation of 11Q13.

No. Carrier's argument either stands or falls on the evidence.

Every argument stands or falls on two things. One is the evidence. The other is the validity of the argument connecting the evidence to the argument's conclusion.

Without his interpretation of 11Q13—along with his mis-reading of Tg. Jonathan and misunderstanding of Jewish messianism—he doesn't have any.

You wrote: "Carrier depends upon one of the Dead Sea Scrolls texts, 11Q13," and you mentioned no other documents in the context where I got that quote.

His interpretation of 11Q13 or of any other document is not supposed to be evidence for anything. Neither is anybody else's interpretation. The documents themselves are the evidence. They are the facts from which we infer whatever we think we can infer about what happened in the past, and only facts can be evidence. Interpretations are opinions, which are not facts and therefore not evidence.

As for Carrier's understanding of first-century Jewish messianism, are you trying to suggest that Jews of that time, throughout that part of the world, were wedded to a single doctrine about who the messiah could be and what he was going to do?

[Doug Shaver]

I'm not sure that I am expressing myself clearly enough

I have that problem myself occasionally. We'll work it out.

The gospels all share in common clear indications from terminology, to rhetorical and literary structures that strongly suggest their situation within a first cent. Jewish context.

I'm not about to ask for a complete presentation of all the evidence supporting that claim, but could I see an example? How about terminology? Can you show me one bit of terminology the gospel authors used that was never, or almost never, used except (a) during the first century and (b) by Jews?

Daniel and Esther are good analogies: works of fiction that came to be regarded as factual history. Incorporation into a historical narrative does not turn fiction into nonfiction.

I agree, but this is not really my argument. I am arguing a couple of things here: First, the gospels are Hellenistic Jewish literature, and within their Jewish context the broader contours of the stories that they tell do not appear anything similar to the hero-legends from Second Temple Judaism which we know to be fictions.

I'm wondering whether this argument doesn't assume its conclusion. Why restrict the comparison to the literature of second-temple Judaism? Why not Greco-Roman literature in general?

The situation of a Galilean peasant who usurps the Torah, defies the temple, is arrested, charged and then executed is historically plausible, but not at all believable as an invented story told and then written down by those who could actually read and write.

I don't follow you. The more plausible a fiction is, the better it is, all else being equal. Ask any book editor. Whether you're trying to entertain your readers, enlighten them, or both, your best bet is to make your story as believable as possible.

The combination of literary features and the specific content of the gospels is the indication that these stories are based on the lives of real people and actual events.

I must ask again for a specific example. Pick one passage from the gospels that you think could not appear in a work of fiction, and explain why it could not.

The mere fact that a person by that name really existed is not evidence for the historical existence of a fictional character having that name.

I was merely pointing to the possibility

OK. I just wanted to be very sure we were together on that point.

At this point I wonder if you are misunderstanding me to be arguing that the Gospels are accurate accounts of history, and that is not at all what I am suggesting.

I think I get that. You're not saying we should believe everything in them is historical fact. I'm asking why we should believe that anything in them is historical fact.

I would counter here that it is historically irresponsible to dismiss the historicity of every part of a narrative on the basis that "a substantial portion of a narrative is prima facie unbelievable."

I guess it would be, but that's not I'm doing. That is to say, my argument is not "Some of it is unbelievable, therefore none of it is believable."

The point is not that the gospels are to be accepted as prima facie believable so much that they ought not be dismissed in toto because they contain unbelievable claims.

I get it that ancient historians were prone to embellish their narratives, but it does not follow that every ancient writer who embellished his narrative was trying to write history.

Like all historical investigations, the topic of the historical Jesus is one that depends upon mounting a positive argument that does not purport any certainty about the existence of Jesus, but rather that it is historically more plausible that the man Jesus existed than it is that he was invented and mythologized.

Fine. We're disagreeing about relative plausibility. I'm claiming that "The gospels were written as fiction, not history" is a plausible hypothesis. You're claiming that it is implausible. I don't think you've presented a cogent argument yet for your claim.

[NormATive]

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.

What I mean by that is that Mark does not tell a complete story. The Prophet does. It may tell it in poetical prose, but it has a sense of completeness. The main character is setting out to leave, answers questions ... And then; leaves.

That, to me, has all the hallmarks of an intentional work of prose or fiction.

With Mark, there are huge gaps in the story line. Hell, even if you include all of the Gospels, you get a very disjointed view of exactly who Jesus is. It's as though he is such a mysterious character, that one needs to just simply invent circumstances surrounding an "idea" of the man.

Now, if I were creating a story of a man like Jesus, I certainly wouldn't leave so many holes in the story line.

What I think is that by the time the gospels were constructed, there were only snippets of oral stories about the real person left floating around. It is from these anecdotes that the sketchy story of Jesus of Nazareth is compiled.

Only the parts of Jesus' life that advance the narrative of the theology seem to exist. That's great propaganda, but poor fiction.

NORM

[Doug Shaver]

The evidence for his existence is not nearly as close to being conclusive as the conventional thinking imagines it to be. Every document attesting to his existence is susceptible to reasonable doubt as to its historical reliability.

That's not exactly the case. Every document has aspects of it considered legendary embellishments, but these documents themselves (Paul's letters and the Gospels, as well as some early documents like the Gospel of Thomas) present very powerful evidence that there was a historical person named Jesus who had a movement.

That's what they all say. It is the standard historicist argument, isn't it? But the argument doesn't get any better just because people repeat it over and over again.

About 75% of ancient Greek philosophers would disappear if we used the rationale that a document (sometimes only an anecdote is present for a philosopher!) that has legends means everything the document mentions is suspicious.

If you ever catch me using that rationale, feel free to rub my nose in it for as long as you like.

However, it is impossible that the entire long passage in Josephus is forged

Prove it.

It is entirely unheard of a person invented within a decade of his movement

Of course it is. Because if it was his movement, he could not have been invented.

It would be absurd to say, "Edison invented the light bulb, but he didn't really exist." It would not be absurd to say, "The invention of the light bulb is commonly attributed to Edison, but that's a mistake, because Edison didn't really exist." But of course, although not absurd, it would be erroneous.

No one would have taken the Gospels as history if they were intended as fiction

Why not? Are you suggested that no work of fiction was ever thought, by lots of people, to be factual history?

like the author of the Acts of Paul and Thecla, everyone would have found out

How would they have done that? By going to snopes.com?

Matthew is quoted by Ignatius c.115 AD

Show me that quote, please.

The John Rylands fragment of John being found in Egypt dating to c.125 AD

That date is not as certain as apologists would like it to be.

If there was any redaction of the Pauline corpus it would have easily been reflected in the MSS tradition.

What manuscript tradition? The corpus is supposed to have originated in the middle of the first century. The oldest extant manuscripts are from 150 years later.

This is abundantly clear from the Johannine Coma and the Doxology of Romans, as well as the Pericope Adulterae.

What those examples make abundantly clear is that redaction happened. They prove that some Christians were willing to alter the documents to which they appealed for support of their dogmas. Which means that they were more concerned with defense of their dogmas than with the integrity of their texts.

Paul's letters occasionally but clearly mention the historical Jesus

Only when read with a presupposition of his existence. And "occasionally" is an overstatement. In the entire corpus said to be indisputably Pauline, there are three such mentions, and of those three, one said he had a mother, and another that he was of Davidic lineage. What do you think the third one is?

The absence of an overabundance of historical information regarding Jesus is because of the urgency to address the much more important for his audience spiritual problems.

That could be a plausible explanation if we presuppose Jesus' historicity. Without that presupposition, it's a long reach.

It is only with hindsight bias that we should expect much more

I don't think the unbiased ones are those who say there is nothing anomalous about Paul's silence.

Paul lived*within living memoryof Jesus

You're assuming your conclusion here.

Galatians, one of those seven, clearly notes (Chs. 1-2) how he met with the Jerusalem church whose leaders confirmed his Gospel as true and from God.

Right. From God. Not from Jesus or any of his disciples.

If Paul would have made anything up . . . .

That's a straw man. I never said he made anything up.

so many witnesses that knew the historical Jesus (1 Cor. 15).

You're assuming your conclusion again. There are no witnesses to the historical Jesus in I Corinthians 15, except on the assumption that there was a historical Jesus. Everyone mentioned in that chapter had a vision of the risen Christ, nothing else.

It's also very difficult to believe he would change from a persecutor to a defender of the faith in the face of numerous dangers all for his own lies

Another straw man. I've never accused Paul of lying about anything.

When Marcion attempted the same thing 100 years later, he was kicked out of Rome.

That's the story we get from people who hated Marcion. If the only information I had about Christians was from people who hated Christians, would you think I should believe any of it?

he was unjustly executed by Roman officials at the urging of Jewish priests

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 is sufficient evidence that you haven't even really read the Pauline corpus.

What are you disputing here? Do you deny that Paul believed Jesus' execution was unjust? Or do you deny that Paul believed he was executed by Roman officials? Or do you deny that Paul believed Jews had some responsibility for his execution?

certain men whom the author names had been among Jesus' disciples.

Well that's a rather weak and unhistorical way of looking at the issue.

I'm not saying it's how I look at the issue.

if you take off your biased glasses, you would have no choice but to accept Peter, John, and James, whom Paul names, as historical disciples of Jesus'.

Maybe so, but the only point I was making was that we would not know, from anything Paul says about them, that they had been disciples of Jesus. Paul does not refer to anybody, anywhere in his writings, as a disciple of Jesus.

If you had a good reason to see anything, your argument would have had a lot more detail.

My argument would have a lot more detail if I had more time and were under no space restrictions.

the Josephan reference to Jesus is hard to deny in its entirety.

Hard for you to deny it, maybe. That doesn't make denial unreasonable.

If the entire thing had been a forgery, there would have been a much longer passage glorifying Jesus

Right, because every Christian who ever forged anything was too stupid to make the forgery look realistic.

[Doug Shaver]

What I mean by that is that Mark does not tell a complete story. The Prophet does.

As a story about Almustafa's life, The Prophet is more incomplete than Mark's story about Jesus.

The main character is setting out to leave, answers questions ... And then; leaves.

That's sort of like summarizing Les Mis as: The main character finishes a prison sentence, adopts the daughter of a dying prostitute, and dies shortly after she marries a revolutionist.

The point of my analogy was that The Prophet omits practically all biographical information about Almustafa because it's not even about him in the first place. The narrative, such as it is, is just some rhetorical scaffolding on which Gibran could hang some of his philosophical musings. Similarly, I suggest, the gospel authors used Jesus' ministry, execution, and resurrection as rhetorical scaffolding for their religious ideas. If that was what they were doing, then their failure to include other biographical details is no more inexplicable than Gibran's failure to say anything more than he did about Almustafa's life.

Only the parts of Jesus' life that advance the narrative of the theology seem to exist. That's great propaganda, but poor fiction.

As a work of fiction, The Prophet is hardly a page-turner. But nobody ever read it because they cared about the plot.

[NormATive]

The point of my analogy was that The Prophet omits practically all biographical information about Almustafa because it's not even about him in the first place. The narrative, such as it is, is just some rhetorical scaffolding on which Gibran could hang some of his philosophical musings. Similarly, I suggest, the gospel authors used Jesus' ministry, execution, and resurrection as rhetorical scaffolding for their religious ideas.

Okay, I think we are actually on the same page, then. I DO think that the Christian Testament is a very intentional work of religious propaganda. I think where we disagree, then, is on the existence of an historical Jesus.

I think that the various authors of the Christian Testament picked a real, historical man by the name of Jesus who was executed (there were hundreds of such real persons to choose from) for whatever - they probably made up the whole audience before the Sanhedrin / Pontius Pilate episodes. For whatever reason, Jesus of Nazareth was a fitting character for their narrative. I think it would have been more plausible to the audience at the time (mostly Hellenized Jews) were it an actual, living person.

NORM

[Doug Shaver]

I think that the various authors of the Christian Testament picked a real, historical man by the name of Jesus who was executed (there were hundreds of such real persons to choose from) for whatever - they probably made up the whole audience before the Sanhedrin / Pontius Pilate episodes. For whatever reason, Jesus of Nazareth was a fitting character for their narrative. I think it would have been more plausible to the audience at the time (mostly Hellenized Jews) were it an actual, living person.

I'd probably regard that as a plausible scenario if Christianity's historical paper trail were limited to the gospels. I think too much of the documentary record, though, is inconsistent with it.

[robrecht]

Okay, I think we are actually on the same page, then. I DO think that the Christian Testament is a very intentional work of religious propaganda. I think where we disagree, then, is on the existence of an historical Jesus.

I think that the various authors of the Christian Testament picked a real, historical man by the name of Jesus who was executed (there were hundreds of such real persons to choose from) for whatever - they probably made up the whole audience before the Sanhedrin / Pontius Pilate episodes. For whatever reason, Jesus of Nazareth was a fitting character for their narrative. I think it would have been more plausible to the audience at the time (mostly Hellenized Jews) were it an actual, living person.

NORM

Why do you think he was executed? And by whom?

[NormATive]

Why do you think he was executed? And by whom?

I think that by the time of Jesus, the Roman occupying force in Jerusalem became weary of all of the would-be messiahs. The Jewish Moshiach, at that time, was expected to lead a political revolution that would see the Davidic kingdom restored and peace and glory would come to Israel.

I recall a number of years ago reading a historic document (Josephus?) describing a scene of dozens of crosses erected just outside Jerusalem all with Jewish political prisoners who were condemned to death. The cross was the chosen method of capital punishment for Jews because it introduced the maximum amount of personal injury (not just the physical kind). The final insult was leaving the body hang on the cross to be devoured by wild animals - a direct challenge to the Jewish respect for human remains (must be elaborately dressed in herbs and aromatic spices, wrapped in clean linens and buried within 24 hours - to keep the body away from animals).

I think that Jesus was one of hundreds of political prisoners executed by Roman authorities for sedition or some such.

NORM