Richard Carrier’s “On the Historicity of Jesus” now out

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Being raised catholic that's the original Jesus I was introduced to. The protagonist was a perfect human being who was wrongly put to death simply because he was a perfect human being. But then, theologically, surprise-surprise, this was the plan all along because we all needed saved and we needed a perfect sacrifice. But then Jesus was also a god who could become this perfect human being and therefore pull it all off. Then interpolate John to have a trinity... and on and on with the religious development.

And just as a reader of fiction the gospel protagonist is no more unique than any other unique character in a story, at least to me.

It's my opinion that you might have gone too far the other way in thinking that a more ordinary person, a cult founder, a deluded and superstitious man (one of several like him around that time), never even existed, but I am not asking that you share my opinion. I'm fine with you taking it to be more likely that he didn't if that's the position you yourself have arrived at. My opinion is different, but it's just my opinion, my leaning. None of us will ever be even close to sure, and in many ways it's not that important.

I'm not saying that those things weren't around at the time. Clearly they were. Rather I'm simply saying that the historical bigfoot is not bigfoot.

It's like Baum's Wizard of Oz. There is an historical Wizard, Oz, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Wicked Witches because that's how fictional literature works for the author. But in the case of Baum's book, the historical wizard isn't a wizard. The historical Oz is not Oz. The historical Tin Man is not a Tin Man. Same goes for Lion, Scarecrow and the Good and Bad Witches. Like Mark's Jesus, they are inspired literary devices created by an author.

Personally, I think it is profoundly important to understand the meaning of historicity in matters involving fictional literature. To many it may seem like a semantic quibble but it is not.

Did you happen to watch the videos about Paul's letters?

 

[whollygoats]

Did you happen to watch the videos about Paul's letters?

Um...Are there more videos? Was there a bit about Paul's letters? I'm still reeling from Excavating the Empty Tomb...was it in that vidfest?

 

[ruby sparks]

Yeah, a docetic appearance is distinctly historically verifiable.

Try this: For Doceticists, were the disciples supposed to be avatars too? Think about it. Of course a Docetic Jesus would be historical, not because 'he' wasn't an avatar but because the avatar would, in that scenario, have interacted with non-avatar people (including those who nailed him to wood, even if what they thought they were nailing to the wood wasn't really what it seemed). To suggest otherwise is disingenuous and an old and tired attempt (which I first came across about 15 years ago when I encountered the topic) at locating and citing supposed ahistoricists (in this case Marcion) by those who like that explanation but can't find any actual ahistoricists in the record. I'm thinking of giving it a name. How about "The Mythical Docetist Scraping-The-Barrel-For-Fudge Explanation"?

In other words, nice try. But sorry, you basically linked me to an article that said the opposite of what you emphatically claimed (caps and all). Why did you even do that? You must have read it yourself. Maybe you yourself have theories about a supposed version of 'Mythicist Docetism', but what was the point of referring me to an article by a Mr Harnack who doesn't think that and doesn't think it about Marcion either?

 

[ruby sparks]

I'm not saying that those things weren't around at the time. Clearly they were. Rather I'm simply saying that the historical bigfoot is not bigfoot.

It's like Baum's Wizard of Oz. There is an historical Wizard, Oz, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and Wicked Witches because that's how fictional literature works for the author. But in the case of Baum's book, the historical wizard isn't a wizard. The historical Oz is not Oz. The historical Tin Man is not a Tin Man. Same goes for Lion, Scarecrow and the Good and Bad Witches. Like Mark's Jesus, they are inspired literary devices created by an author.

Personally, I think it is profoundly important to understand the meaning of historicity in matters involving fictional literature. To many it may seem like a semantic quibble but it is not.

The problem, as I've been saying for ages, is that you are assuming that there is such and such an amount of historical figure in the gospels, but we have no way of knowing how much if any there is, so we have no reliable way of assessing if The Wizard of OZ or any other work of fiction is comparable.

Did you happen to watch the videos about Paul's letters?

Which ones? Maybe I missed them.

I'm not saying that those things weren't around at the time. Clearly they were. Rather I'm simply saying that the historical bigfoot is not bigfoot.

Going back to this.....What things do you agree were (likely, in your opinion) around at the time? Do you mean a man, the non-extraordinary grit of sand in the oyster?

I think you might be willing to say, 'probably yes' to this, but then you are going to relegate such a (possible) man to something like the man (assuming there was one) behind the Wizard in the Wizard of OZ and imo you are back to assuming a fictional model. It seems circular. That's why I really don't go near the gospels much. I don't buy outer space Jesus, so to me 'Paul' seems to be describing some Jewish bloke who preached a bit and got crucified. Even that's not entirely secure, but the confusion and uncertainty just gets worse every time we try to assess anything more from the gospels, mainly because it is very very difficult to tell the completely made up bits from the partially made up bits from the elaborated bits from the not made up bits (temporarily assuming there are some of each). Paul wasn't (apparently) likely to be doing fictional literature, so it's easier to assess him (if like me one doesn't buy into outer space Jesus).

Do you perhaps see why I can't engage with you when you're making assumptions about your fictional model? It's because neither of us have a reliable way to assess how much in the gospels is fictional, so there's nothing to be gained from citing this or that other character from fiction. I don't mind doing it for fun, for speculation, but I think we should shy away from concluding much. I pretty much stop at, 'slightly more likely than not there was some 1st C CE Jewish bloke, either called Jesus or later given that name, who preached a bit and got killed, and is the man 'Paul' appears to be writing about, the same man that the prior Jerusalem blokes were followers of before 'Paul' got on board'. I don't know where you might stand on that minimal possibility?

 

[whollygoats]

Yeah, a docetic appearance is distinctly historically verifiable.

Try this: For Doceticists, were the disciples supposed to be avatars too? Think about it. Of course a Docetic Jesus would be historical, not because 'he' wasn't an avatar but because the avatar would, in that scenario, have interacted with non-avatar people (including those who nailed him to wood, even if what they thought they were nailing to the wood wasn't really what it seemed). To suggest otherwise is disingenuous and an old and tired attempt (which I first came across about 15 years ago when I encountered the topic) at locating and citing supposed ahistoricists (in this case Marcion) by those who like that explanation but can't find any actual ahistoricists in the record. I'm thinking of giving it a name. How about "The Mythical Docetist Scraping-The-Barrel-For-Fudge Explanation"?

In other words, nice try. But sorry, you basically linked me to an article that said the opposite of what you emphatically claimed (caps and all). Why did you even do that? You must have read it yourself. Maybe you yourself have theories about a supposed version of 'Mythicist Docetism', but what was the point of referring me to an article by a Mr Harnack who doesn't think that and doesn't think it about Marcion either?

Yeah....riiiiiiiight. You just continue to think that. I'll call that "Fuckwits-Don't-Know-How-To-Fucking-Think-Straight."

4. Marcion had no interest in specially emphasising the distinction between the good God and Christ, which according to the Pauline Epistles, could not be denied. To him Christ is the manifestation of the good God himself. 26 But Marcion taught that Christ assumed absolutely nothing from the creation of the Demiurge, but came down from heaven in the I5th year of the Emperor Tiberius, and after the assumption of an apparent body, began his preaching in the synagogue of Capernaum. 27 This pronounced docetism which denies that Jesus was born, or subjected to any human process of development, 28 is the strongest expression of Marcion's abhorrence of the world. This aversion may have sprung from the severe attitude of the early Christians toward the world, but the inference which Marcion here draws, shews, that this feeling was, in his case, united with the Greek estimate of spirit and matter. But Marcion's docetism is all the more remarkable that, under Paul's guidance, he put a high value on the fact of Christ's death upon the cross. Here also is a glaring contradiction which his later disciples laboured to remove. This much, however, is unmistakable, that Marcion succeeded in placing the greatness and uniqueness of redemption through Christ in the clearest light and in beholding this redemption in the person of Christ, but chiefly in his death upon the cross.

I'm just wondering how many figures from the histories we read are merely docetic apparitions and need to be expunged from the history books. Was this a regular thing that happened back then? Perhaps Apollonius of Tyana was merely a docetic apparition, as well?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Ye, the videos on Paul's letters are in the same link posted by Jobar. I'll try to find the exact ones.

 

[whollygoats]

So...ruby.

Why the fuck is it so important to you that this Jesus figure be an actual historical entity?

 

[ruby sparks]

Yeah....riiiiiiiight. You just continue to think that. I'll call that "Fuckwits-Don't-Know-How-To-Fucking-Think-Straight."

From the paper you linked me to:

"2.Marcion placed the good God of love in opposition to the creator of the world. 17 This God has only been revealed in Christ. He was absolutely unknown before Christ, 18 and men were in every respect strange to him. 19 Out of pure goodness and mercy, for these are the essential attributes of this God who judges not and is not wrathful, he espoused the cause of those beings who were foreign to him, as he could not bear to have them any longer tormented by their just and yet malevolent lord. 20 The God of love appeared in Christ and proclaimed a new kingdom (Tertull., adv. Marc. III. 24. fin.). Christ called to himself the weary and heavy laden, 21 and proclaimed to them that he would deliver them from the fetters of their lord and from the world. He shewed mercy to all while he sojourned on the earth, and did in every respect the opposite of what the creator of the world had done to men. They who believed in the creator of the world nailed him to the cross. "

All I was saying was what is the point of directing me to someone who also "Doesn't-Know-How-To-Fucking-Think-Straight" when I ask for you to provide more details?

Embarrassing is not the word. Wasting my time too.

I'm just wondering how many figures from the histories we read are merely docetic apparitions and need to be expunged from the history books. Was this a regular thing that happened back then? Perhaps Apollonius of Tyana was merely a docetic apparition, as well?

Whatever. So you have a theory about missing evidence. I'll contact the Church Police.

 

[ruby sparks]

So...ruby.

Why the fuck is it so important to you that this Jesus figure be an actual historical entity?

On that basis, I could equally ask why is it so important to you that he didn't exist?

In others words, when did we both stop beating our wives?

 

[ruby sparks]

Marcion, even in the second century, was NOT an historicist. Quite the opposite.

Elaboration on that?

Adolf von Harnack good enough for you? From History of Dogma.

Lol. Yeah. But apparently not for you. ROFL

 

[lpetrich]

I've updated List of Lord Raglan evaluations | Atheism | FANDOM powered by Wikia with Dionysus, Theseus, and Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise.

Dionysus scores fairly high, as does Theseus. Captain Kirk scores low, however, like Sherlock Holmes -- much like well-documented people.

I did some linear regression on the heroes' attributes' values, comparing them to heroes' overall scores. The larger the slope, the more some attribute tends to appear mostly in high-scoring heroes.

-

The highest-scoring attributes are being rescued and being targeted in infancy. For some reason, lots of people have it in for baby heroes. Pharaoh vs. Moses, King Kamsa vs. Krishna, King Amulius vs. Romulus, King Laius vs. Oedipus, King Acrisius vs. Perseus, Pelias vs. Jason, Tantalus vs. Pelops, Hera vs. Hercules, Hera vs. Dionysus, Hera vs. Apollo, Kronos vs. Zeus, ... so King Herod vs. Jesus Christ is far from unusual.

So why isn't there any of these? Southern plantation owners vs. Abraham Lincoln, fundamentalists vs. Charles Darwin, rabbis, Jewish bankers, and Jewish Marxists vs. Adolf Hitler, psychiatrists vs. L. Ron Hubbard, oil-company executives vs. Muammar Gaddafi, ...

-

Very close is being the son of a god. Where did all those horny gods go? Yes, I know about "The Christian God did not have sexual relations with that woman, Mary". But that's a secondary detail.

 

[whollygoats]

So...ruby.

Why the fuck is it so important to you that this Jesus figure be an actual historical entity?

On that basis, I could equally ask why is it so important to you that he didn't exist?

In others words, when did we both stop beating our wives?

Y'know, ruby, when I started this reading, several decades back, I basically came in with the understanding that there was some ill-defined, probably historical, itinerant mendicant of the Jordan River valley region. Kind of a Unitarian Universalist understanding; Jefferson's Jesus. Meh.

I started with the rock-ribbed Catholic scholars...Meier and Crossan. I worked my way through others, to come to an agreement with Schweitzer. And, evidently, Wells. If there was such an historical entity, he is entirely lost to history and nothing in the gospel stories, nor the epistles, nor any extant historical document, will assure us of any such historicity. He is a non-entity...a fabrication of faith. A demi-god constructed in the fervent hope that the god which had abandoned the Jews would smile down upon them and offer salvation from this horrendous world. A new covenant. After all, it is all right there in the scriptures...you just need to know how to unlock the prophetic secrets and correctly interpret them.

That von Harnack points out the glaring contradiction of Marcion's position as he understood it seems curious to me. That sure sounds like a shipload of tampering with the said documents. Let's see...the came to light in Marcion's possession, but the early proto-orthodox claim he stole them and altered them. Such contradictory dogma certainly seems like a sure marker of tampering of the documents to create what we have now. So...What is the spectrum of opinion upon what is interpolated in to, expunged from, or otherwise altered in the original work? Since ruby is so omniscient, he can provide us with all that secret inside information that he has on the way it really was back then.

You can stop beating your wife. I have none. Mine died of cancer fifteen years ago, asshole.

 

[lpetrich]

Not far behind is prophecies fulfilled by heroes. Jesus Christ is far from alone, though it's hard to compete with the prophecy of Oedipus killing his father and marrying his mother. Where are the prophecies of the coming of George Washington or Charles Darwin or Adolf Hitler? I recall that some people have tried to find Adolf Hitler in the works of Nostradamus, but that's about it.

Then being raised by foster parents in a distant land. That's rather odd.

Losing favor with the gods or one's followers is rather curiously common in legendary heroes, and Jesus Christ is far from alone there. However, repudiation is much rarer among well-documented ones, even defeated ones like Napoleon and Hitler. Both "gentlemen" had followers who stayed faithful even when they were losing. When Napoleon was exiled to Elba island near Italy, he escaped and his followers got him into power a second time. After he was defeated a second time, he was exiled to St. Helena island in the south Atlantic Ocean. He spent the rest of his life there. Adolf Hitler had followers to the bitter end, when he committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin with Soviet troops only a few blocks away.

I scored Muammar Gaddafi in that page, because his being repudiated is so rare. Among notable people, Tsar Nicholas II, Richard Nixon, and Mikhail Gorbachev were also repudiated, but many others weren't.

Lower down, but still with sizable slopes, is:

1. Father being a king
2. Mother being a royal virgin
3. Us having no details about his childhood despite a dramatic infancy
4. Dying a mysterious death
5. Triumphing over some big enemy

Jesus Christ is a rather mixed bag here. (1) His (step)father was a commoner, but JC's biographers make a big fuss about his Davidic ancestry. (2) His mother was a commoner, but she is not called the Virgin Mary for nothing. (3) We learn that he studied in the Jerusalem Temple when his parents visited there with him, and there are some Infancy Gospels with further childhood adventures. (4) When he was crucified, he died a quick death for a young man in good health. (5) He refused the Devil's temptations, and the Devil gave up on him.

Some items had low slopes, however, like parents being near relatives, the hero's making notable laws, his dying on top of a hill, his having no family successors, and his marrying a princess.

 

[Jobar]

I might mention that I first encountered the 'Excavating the Empty Tomb' videos as a result of this Cafe thread; video 15D, https://youtu.be/rAt-PAkgqls, talks about how the earliest existing documents spelled it 'Chrestianos', not 'Christianos'- although later attempts were made to change the spelling. There are different theories concerning how significant this change is. It might be a simple case of the lack of standardized spelling so common in ancient manuscripts, or it could be that early Jewish or Gnostic Christians called themselves followers of 'Jesus the Good', and later Catholics tried to erase that from the record.

 

[ruby sparks]

Christians themselves were still using various terms, including Chrestians, Chresians and Crestains, up until the 5th Century.

It is almost certainly a translation/spelling issue.

Whether it was ever or originally also used for 'Jesus the good' is another matter, and I think it's possible, if less likely imo than the original word being the word for Messiah.

 

[ruby sparks]

Since ruby is so omniscient, he can provide us with all that secret inside information that he has on the way it really was back then.

When I first got into this, the MJ and ahistoricist theses seemed appealing, and at one time I found myself leaning that way. But on closer inspection, every thesis started to look less and less convincing by comparison with their counterparts.

Not knowing how it was back then is not the issue. The point, to me, since you asked me about motivations, is trying to stick to rational skepticism, which has certain constraints and obligations and is not a free-for-all, including being consistent (in this case with methods of ancient historiography generally) and working with actual evidence, and taking note of parsimony, not just going on suspicions and/or conspiracy theories and absences of evidence, and not making any issue a case of special pleading which by and large mostly 'lives on the internet'.

Plus, I like adopting positions I can readily defend, especially should I ever encounter an 'opponent'. MJ isn't that, imo. It's from the weaker side of the argument, for a variety of reasons, not least that the 'opponent' has virtually all the evidence (even if I can question all of it - and there's a lot - usually by multifarious means). For that reason I am simply never (unless something more convincing turns up) going to take that position against a well-informed and intelligent Christian, because I can't back it up sufficiently, no matter which of us is correct.

I also think (personal opinion here) that a lot of the time, mythical Jesus might just be an inverted case of 'Jeebus is spechul' or an overshoot from understandable aversions to Christianity and woo generally. At the end of the day I don't really care if some greasy superstitious middle-eastern idiot existed or not, but spending time on atheist forums among the 'mythical faithful' has been, at times, an eye-opener regarding just how far some are prepared to move away from the norms of rational skepticism. Not to mention the imitating of bibble scholars' methods, though only the select few who,"Know-How-To-Fucking-Think-Straight" (aka 'those few I agree with').

Imo, the most plausible, rational, evidenced and parsimonius explanation for how Christianity first got started was that some suitably charismatic 'Jesus' bloke probably existed, most likely a Jewish preacher in 1st C Judea who met an early demise at the hands of the Romans. This is how cults usually get started. Get over it already.

I could be wrong. I'm waiting for what I consider to be a better case against.

 

[ruby sparks]

Whollygoats, when you write to me in private, as you just did, regarding my 'smug bullshit' and the 'load of shit' that you think the above is, I'm afraid it only makes me consider again that you might be more emotionally invested in this than is useful to your impartiality. I'm adding this to the fact that you have repeatedly referred/linked me to articles, people and opinions that do not, contrary to what you said about them beforehand, concur with your views or what you said or implied about the links or the persons.

There may be a case for Jesus' ahistoricity, but I would not trust you to make it. I'm at the point, after that last mini-fiasco about Harnack/Marcion, where I can hardly assume that anything you say isn't a completely skewed or biased interpretation when investigated. By now, after interacting with you for a while, I would have trouble assuming you can even sit the right way on a toilet, to be honest.

You may take that to the bank and cash it. I don't mind, by the way, being called an asshole or the purveyor of shit. It's not the first time in this topic, and you're not the only one to do it, even during threads here since I not-so-long ago arrived, nor is it unusual on similar threads on other forums, and because of that I regard it as a fairly common over-reaction (by some) to the fact that someone (an atheist in my case) happens to think it more likely than not that someone existed.

You asked me for my general approach and I told you. As for any hopes you may or may not have about drawing me further into a stupid argument, forget it. I wouldn't be interested.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I might mention that I first encountered the 'Excavating the Empty Tomb' videos as a result of this Cafe thread; video 15D, https://youtu.be/rAt-PAkgqls, talks about how the earliest existing documents spelled it 'Chrestianos', not 'Christianos'- although later attempts were made to change the spelling. There are different theories concerning how significant this change is. It might be a simple case of the lack of standardized spelling so common in ancient manuscripts, or it could be that early Jewish or Gnostic Christians called themselves followers of 'Jesus the Good', and later Catholics tried to erase that from the record.

There were definitely two distinct spellings and two distinct meanings with two different words. Personally I don't see how they could be confused.

The earliest documents we have used "e" and have all been changed to "i". It's clearly visible in the documents. It's not a misspelling error unless one holds that something was misspelled consistently for half a millenium.

I think the writers meant "e" as originally written, and that it was later changed to "i". IOW early christianity was chrestianity, something different than the dogma that later supplanted it.

 

[Learner]

It would be less confusing imo to keep in mind the earlier: "Saints" which is the original name for those who followed Jesus to which otherwise; possibly lead all that scholarly effort in not quite the right direction - "barking up the wrong tree" so to speak.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The discussion of Paul's letters in the video series appears to start here:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPhKmRmCSoE[/YOUTUBE]

I have not watched all four videos - not yet!