Ehrman's Criteria for the Historicity of Jesus

[Hierophant]

I wanted to hear some thoughts from the group on the likelihood of Jesus being a historical figure. I recently listened to Bart Ehrman's lecture on The New Testament and I found his arguments for the historical Jesus to be a bit weak. Weak enough that I think he is going too far when he laughs at mythicism and usually follows it with "no reputable scholar I know thinks Jesus was not historical." I am definitely not saying Jesus was not historical, but the arguments put forth for his historicity are not definite in my opinion. The strongest argument for the historical Jesus is Paul's reference to James, "the brother of the Lord." I read Carrier's counter argument stating this could mean something else, and I suppose it could, but I am not convinced Carrier's explanation is the more natural way to read the text.

 

The fact that Jesus of Nazareth is not mentioned by any contemporary historian of his time, nor Jewish, nor Roman is really bizarre to me. Not even a letter from Joe Blow saying he ran across this Jesus guy to his family. May have existed, just lost to time. Other than the Bible, the first mention of Jesus in outside sources is really late, and even then, it's not first-hand knowledge, but in Josepheus and Tacitus, which is likely them just discussing things they heard about Christianity.

 

I feel like I am missing something important that the likes of historicist such as Ehrman and the scholars he respects, as well as the layman such as Tim O'Neil have in their back pocket.

 

I am not a trained historian, but it makes me wonder if historians have a low threshold of accepting something as fact. Makes me wonder how much we really know about the ancient world and the characters in it.

[◊ Weezer ◊]

5 hours ago, Hierophant said:

 

Makes me wonder how much we really know about the ancient world and the characters in it.

 

Like you, I have wrestled with the question of Jesus for years, and am still "sitting on the fence".  Have you read my post in the Testimony section, IN DEFENSE OF JESUS?    I can see how he "might have" existed.  

[Hierophant]

21 minutes ago, Weezer said:

Like you, I have wrestled with the question of Jesus for years, and am still "sitting on the fence".  Have you read my post in the Testimony section, IN DEFENSE OF JESUS?    I can see how he "might have" existed.  

I'll check it out. Curious to see what your thoughts are.

[♦ Fuego ♦]

Ehrman has a couple of books "Jesus Before The Gospels" and "How Jesus Became God" (https://www.bartehrman.com/books-published/) where he contends that Jesus was a poor apocalyptic Jewish preacher like John the Baptist, but that he made one trek to Jerusalem to preach repentance and charity and offended the authorities/political-machine who had no trouble crucifying him like any other criminal. His followers began exaggerating his words and abilities after his death, and since we assume none of them were literate all the stories were told and retold, but there was no scripture written by the originals. We really have nothing earlier than the writings of Paul (and some writings attributed to him in the Bible are forgeries. Paul never even met Jesus and barely mentions anything he said and nothing he did), and then later the 4 canonical gospels (which each paint a different picture of Jesus, based on what each Greek speaking  author wanted to portray). So only the Greek speaking cults that sprang up from his teachings give us any picture of the man, but all of them aggrandize him which is common in cults. Some of the gospels seem to follow a god-man tradition common in Greek culture, and Mark is almost a mystery religion approach where Jesus won't tell the crowds what his parables mean because then they might be saved!

 

He also contends that because Paul knew James the brother of Jesus that it stands to reason that Jesus was a real person, just that the stories about him were blown way out of proportion. 

 

[Hierophant]

1 hour ago, Fuego said:

Ehrman has a couple of books "Jesus Before The Gospels" and "How Jesus Became God" (https://www.bartehrman.com/books-published/) where he contends that Jesus was a poor apocalyptic Jewish preacher like John the Baptist, but that he made one trek to Jerusalem to preach repentance and charity and offended the authorities/political-machine who had no trouble crucifying him like any other criminal. His followers began exaggerating his words and abilities after his death, and since we assume none of them were literate all the stories were told and retold, but there was no scripture written by the originals. We really have nothing earlier than the writings of Paul (and some writings attributed to him in the Bible are forgeries. Paul never even met Jesus and barely mentions anything he said and nothing he did), and then later the 4 canonical gospels (which each paint a different picture of Jesus, based on what each Greek speaking  author wanted to portray). So only the Greek speaking cults that sprang up from his teachings give us any picture of the man, but all of them aggrandize him which is common in cults. Some of the gospels seem to follow a god-man tradition common in Greek culture, and Mark is almost a mystery religion approach where Jesus won't tell the crowds what his parables mean because then they might be saved!

 

He also contends that because Paul knew James the brother of Jesus that it stands to reason that Jesus was a real person, just that the stories about him were blown way out of proportion. 

 

What's your take, historical or mythical?

[TABA]

On 10/22/2023 at 11:58 AM, Hierophant said:

"no reputable scholar I know thinks Jesus was not historical."

Yeah I think this statement from Ehrman is a bit self-fulfilling.  To be considered “reputable” you pretty much have to accept the historicity of Jesus.  I like Ehrman a great deal and I’ve learned an enormous amount from him, but I think he’s a bit too quick to brush aside mythicist arguments.

 

So what do I think?  I’d say I lean to thinking some version of Jesus did exist, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.  By “some version” I mean something close to the portrayal in the Gospel of Mark: a man who had been specially chosen by God to herald the coming Messiah, who would defeat all Israel’s enemies - especially the Romans - and evil in general, and set up his kingdom on earth for eternity. Either he though he himself was that Messiah - the Son of Man - or the one sent to announce his imminent arrival.  Instead his troublemaking got him killed, the Romans prevailed, evil still exists and the Messiah is still overdue.  This is the Failed Apocalyptic Prophet theory of Ehrman’s, which seems like the best fit to me.   
 

That said, I’m also open to the mythicists’ arguments, though to be honest I haven’t looked into them.  I haven’t read Carrier or much of what Price says about it.  So I’m agnostic in that respect.  Not that it matters that much, apart from the historical interest.  A dead Jesus is no different from an entirely mythical Jesus, and I’m satisfied it’s either one or the other.   

[♦ Fuego ♦]

I tend to concur with TABA on this. I've been in a cult, and having a leader go from oil rig worker to prophet of God that raises the dead didn't take long and the guy is still alive.

 

I think Jesus was likely as Ehrman describes, a Jewish apocalyptic preacher during foreign occupation trying to get Israel to embrace charity and devotion in preparation for (and to spur) God's intervention in human affairs. Something about his teaching struck differently than John the Baptist's, and he may have had more personal charisma for his followers to adore, which led to more devotion and aggrandizing once he died. The later stories about him reflect the Greek speaking cultures from which each gospel originated, with variances in how they viewed Jesus and the oral traditions each disparate group had regarding him. 

 

[mwc]

On 10/22/2023 at 8:58 AM, Hierophant said:

I wanted to hear some thoughts from the group on the likelihood of Jesus being a historical figure. I recently listened to Bart Ehrman's lecture on The New Testament and I found his arguments for the historical Jesus to be a bit weak. Weak enough that I think he is going too far when he laughs at mythicism and usually follows it with "no reputable scholar I know thinks Jesus was not historical." I am definitely not saying Jesus was not historical, but the arguments put forth for his historicity are not definite in my opinion. The strongest argument for the historical Jesus is Paul's reference to James, "the brother of the Lord." I read Carrier's counter argument stating this could mean something else, and I suppose it could, but I am not convinced Carrier's explanation is the more natural way to read the text.

 

The fact that Jesus of Nazareth is not mentioned by any contemporary historian of his time, nor Jewish, nor Roman is really bizarre to me. Not even a letter from Joe Blow saying he ran across this Jesus guy to his family. May have existed, just lost to time. Other than the Bible, the first mention of Jesus in outside sources is really late, and even then, it's not first-hand knowledge, but in Josepheus and Tacitus, which is likely them just discussing things they heard about Christianity.

 

I feel like I am missing something important that the likes of historicist such as Ehrman and the scholars he respects, as well as the layman such as Tim O'Neil have in their back pocket.

 

I am not a trained historian, but it makes me wonder if historians have a low threshold of accepting something as fact. Makes me wonder how much we really know about the ancient world and the characters in it.

     Historians use (or are supposed to use) the Historical Method.  What it sort of boils down to is if the record seems legit then a person, place, thing or event is considered legit.  The archeological record is considered separate from the written record so they can disagree.  Oddly enough this can mean that historians can accept something as true that archeologists do not (and vice-versa) although they do try to square these things when such issue arise.  But people can write about things that just aren't found in the ground (imagine places like El Dorado and the like...people will keep looking for them ad infinitum *because* they're in the historical record even if they're not where they're supposed to be so they reimagine that record so they can be anywhere else in the attempt to square things).

 

     Anyhow, in the case of jesus it's not really an overstatement to say that most historians accept he existed.  That is simply a person named Jesus, from Nazareth, who had two parents and siblings, likely did carpentry or other basic labor like his father, later performed preaching, perhaps including some form of faith healing, around Galilee and managed to be executed.  A pretty basic description.  Essentially all other details come from elsewhere.

 

          mwc

 

[◊ Weezer ◊]

Have any of you read about Jesus in the Gnostic Gospels?   They give him a different "flavor".  Probably the reason they were left out of the canon.  And pushed me just a bit closer to believing he may have existed.

[Hierophant]

Any idea when they were written?

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

I do think an actual Jesus existed that inspired the story. Probably a small time preacher or wayside prophet that garnered some attention from the locals. Possibly was even killed for his teachings. Obviously what Jesus taught wasn't the accepted teaching of the time. The God of Jesus is certainly not the God of the old testament. I think most of us here can see that. And I'm sure a preacher gathering a following preaching a doctrine that was against the norm would have been perceived as a threat. 

 

But at what point in time do we call something a myth anyway? We know that the story we have today is not the truth. And it is so far from the truth that it is more myth than anything else. So the mythicist theory is still valid whether it was based on an actual man or not. 

 

I do think there are 2 people in the bible who probably knew the real Jesus. It seems that James was known to be Jesus' brother. We dont have a writing from him is mostly a side character. And Peter seems to have been one of his followers. I would include Paul but even in his own writings he did not know Jesus in life but had a heat stroke/Stroke on the road to Damascus and saw a vision of Jesus and was blinded temporarily. 

 

He and Peter were at odds. I think most likely Peter probably preached a teaching closer to that of Jesus. One more geared toward Jews than Gentiles. One where anyone who wanted to believe would be required to be circumcised and eat kosher. We probably wouldn't have liked the real Jesus because to him we wouldn't have been God's chosen people. I don't believe that his teaching would have been universal for everyone. I give Paul the credit for that. To me. Paul was the true founder of the Christian church. 

 

DB

[◊ Weezer ◊]

8 hours ago, Hierophant said:

Any idea when they were written?

I believe it is generally agreed that they were written in the early 2nd century.  But some claim they were written earlier.  It is interesting that they make Jesus sound more like a normal person than the 4 gospels in the bible.  And they were all probably written from stories passed down verbally through the years.

 

If Biblical writings were dervived from verbal stories, Which most probably are, I can now literally see how they got embelished.  I am old enough now to go to funerals of people I knew all my life.  In some cases the stories that are told about how great these people were, are foreign to what I knew about the person.  

[mwc]

12 hours ago, Hierophant said:

Any idea when they were written?

     According to Elaine Pagels in The Gnostic Gospels:

 

Quote

 

About the dating of the manuscripts themselves there is little debate. Examination of the datable papyrus used to thicken the leather bindings, and of the Coptic script, place them c. A.D. 350- 400. 9 But scholars sharply disagree about the dating of the original texts. Some of them can hardly be later than c. A.D. 120-150, since Irenaeus, the orthodox Bishop of Lyons, writing c. 180, declares that heretics "boast that they possess more gospels than there really are," 10 and complains that in his time such writings already have won wide circulation—from Gaul through Rome, Greece, and Asia Minor.

 

Quispel and his collaborators, who first published the Gospel of Thomas, suggested the date of c. A.D. 140 for the original. 11 Some reasoned that since these gospels were heretical, they must have been written later than the gospels of the New Testament, which are dated c. 60-110. But recently Professor Helmut Koester of Harvard University has suggested that the collection of sayings in the Gospel of Thomas, although compiled c. 140, may include some traditions even older than the gospels of the New Testament, "possibly as early as the second half of the first century" (50-100)— as early as, or earlier, than Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. 12

 

     So there's a wide range offered but certainly the 2nd century.  Could be earlier but by mid-2nd century you would be able to find them.  In this sense they're fairly concurrent with all other xian literature.

 

          mwc

 

[☆ DarkBishop ☆]

Yeah Bart Ehrman has said several times that what we have are copies, of copies, of copies. We have no originals. And before that it was probably spread through word of mouth. I bet it is a nightmare trying to date something. Sometimes they can date it by certain writing styles that were used in different periods that lasted through the copying process. 

 

DB

[pantheory]

The Jesus character of the Bible probably never existed, miracles etc, but there were many itinerant Jewish preachers two thousand years ago like the fabled John-the-Baptist and Jesus. Some even have notes in history of their existence. But I think the character of Jesus is more a conglomerate of fabled and historical figures like Mithra etc. If such a person  did exist ( unlikely IMO) then the miracle stories of the Bible were simply fabricated.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology

[Wertbag]

I don't think Jesus failing to be mentioned by the limited writings we do have can lead us to any conclusions.  It seems Jesus didn't write, most of his followers were illiterate, and he would have been just one of many Messiahs, preachers and cult leaders of the time.  I think the common answer is that it's such a mundane claim that a guy with a very common name lived and died in that area, that it's easy to grant that as plausible.  Growing a cult from an actual guy seems easier than not having the claimed Messiah as the focus of that cult, but we just don't know for sure.

 

Mythicists do have some valid arguments and we know a lot or even most of what is claimed to be spoken by Jesus likely never was.  We have stupid birth narratives, miracle claims that make the stories unbelievable and a lack of any physical evidence of his existence. There are also quite a few arguments from silence, which aren't convincing by themselves.  I would still say it's plausible he never existed and we lack any decent evidence to know either way for sure.