Best evidence for a historical Joshua ben Joseph

[Wiploc]

No one ever wants to hear the story about the time i did the spped limit all the way home, no one broke traffic laws, and i got a good night's sleep.

The Smothers Brothers did a song that I can't find, so forgive any errors:

Let me tell you the story of old Number Nine,
Fastest engine on the Santa Fe line.
On the fourteenth of April, she made a mad dash,
And she got there on time, and she did not crash.

 

[Atheos]

To say that it is intellectually lazy to give consideration to the possibility that the Jesus character is a complete fabrication is just plain wrong. The most intellectually lazy thing to do would be the opposite: Simply believe without investigation the stuff that has been passed around for centuries.

You can have Intellectual laziness in both fabrication and simply believing without investigation.

Leaving us with a series of incredible tales every bit is extraordinary as a magical sleigh pulled by flying reindeer, unsupported by even the barest of witness, archaeological evidence, artifacts, etc. These extraordinary events simply did not happen.

...............................................

Which means what remains (the historical Jesus, assuming one actually existed) bore little, if any resemblance to the legend fabricated through decades of story-telling. Perhaps one day authentic evidence will surface that does, in fact, corroborate the actual existence of this human being whose influence inspired the eventual legend that developed. But it is not beyond the realm of possibility that he never existed. The only thing beyond the realm of possibility is that the stories about him performing all those miracles are true.

"Which means what remains"...is a little misleading. The top part "sleigh and reindeer"... the barest of witness,archeological evidence, artifacts, etc. compares differently to the biblical, which at least does have material (witnesses scriptural, archeology & artifacts etc.) to debate about.

Forensic theorizing is not fabrication. The theories may not turn out to be true but they are not fabrications. They are attempts to piece together what actually happened from the evidence (or lack of evidence) available. This type of intellectual pursuit may offend some folks beliefs, but they are not in themselves examples of intellectual laziness.

I would also go so far as to say that fabrication is not intellectual laziness. It takes a good deal of intellectual effort to produce a really compelling story.

Believing either fabrications or theories without taking the time to weigh their merits ... that's intellectual laziness. And all of us have to do that sometimes. Nobody can become intimately familiar with every discipline of intellectual pursuit in existence. Nobody has the time in a single lifetime to do that. But obviously many of us who are participating in this thread are at least willing to put forth an effort to do more than the vast majority of the human population with regard to this subject. Whichever way you end up believing is immaterial in the long run (unless you happen to be one of the ones who believe you have to believe in Santa Claus or you won't get any gifts from him ... whoops, have to believe in Jesus or you ... well you get my drift).

The Jesus legends have the same number of witnesses, artifacts, etc., as the Santa Claus legends. Feel free to produce a single actual eyewitness testimony or artifact (that isn't as fake as the shroud of Turin) and I'll retract that statement.

 

[ruby sparks]

Feel free to produce a single actual eyewitness testimony or artifact (that isn't as fake as the shroud of Turin) and I'll retract that statement.

How many of the millions of Jews who ever lived in ancient Judea are there artifacts for or eyewitness testimonies about? Almost none whatsoever, if there are even any at all. You are using an unreasonable standard of evidence that no one has any good reason to expect to be available in this case.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Which is partly why I invited you to analyse Galatians.

In all honesty when I read Galatians, and having had close personal contact with persons with psychosis, it appears to me that the writer is leading an existence that is in and out of mania and psychosis. So I don't put much credence into anything it contains. I've know psychotic individuals to believe they were messengers of gods and to travel extensively, all the while fabricating outlandish stories about the need to go do this and that, nothing of which was of any importance or genuine value.

So to hear an author expound as we do in Galatians does not impress. Of course, in the day such individuals were considered to be in close contact with a god or some other spirit, when in reality they had a brain condition that was bringing on the behavior. Have you ever known anyone like this?

There is also the problem of how, so soon after the death of a founding Jesus figure all these churches were already formed at such a distance from the founding location. By my reckoning they were already there, providing we are not simply listening to the ravings and delusions of a psychotic. Generally speaking we do know that "Paul" had mental problems. His Damascus awakening sounds very much like a psychotic event. Do not you agree? His experiences are identical to what I have observed in individuals so affected.

 

[ruby sparks]

Which is partly why I invited you to analyse Galatians.

In all honesty when I read Galatians, and having had close personal contact with persons with psychosis, it appears to me that the writer is leading an existence that is in and out of mania and psychosis. So I don't put much credence into anything it contains. I've know psychotic individuals to believe they were messengers of gods and to travel extensively, all the while fabricating outlandish stories about the need to go do this and that, nothing of which was of any importance or genuine value.

So to hear an author expound as we do in Galatians does not impress. Of course, in the day such individuals were considered to be in close contact with a god or some other spirit, when in reality they had a brain condition that was bringing on the behavior. Have you ever known anyone like this?

There is also the problem of how, so soon after the death of a founding Jesus figure all these churches were already formed at such a distance from the founding location. By my reckoning they were already there, providing we are not simply listening to the ravings and delusions of a psychotic. Generally speaking we do know that "Paul" had mental problems. His Damascus awakening sounds very much like a psychotic event. Do not you agree? His experiences are identical to what I have observed in individuals so affected.

Imo that's missing a key aspect of the letter, the given reason for writing it in the first place (as stated at the start and throughout), and therefore an informative takeaway from and about it (unless one wants to claim that the whole thing is a fake and that there were in fact no actual recipients in Galatia).

The letter, whatever the mental health of the writer, is primarily concerned mainly with one thing, persuading the recipients not to stray away from the writer's previous teachings by instead accepting a different version of the cult beliefs from other proselytisers, who have, apparently, been lecturing to the Galatian converts in the writer's absence. The writer is at pains to establish his credentials as the bearer of the accurate version, by associating himself with the earlier leaders (and also by citing his own USP) but he is clearly by that stage already at odds with them about certain things (eg that new non-Jewish converts should not get circumcised, as the other proselytisers have been demanding they do).

What this implies is that the writer did not start the cult, or even claim to, but joined it at some stage, and then started to preach his own slightly different version of it, and that there was a rift developing between him and the original leaders in Jerusalem.

There is also the problem of how, so soon after the death of a founding Jesus figure all these churches were already formed at such a distance from the founding location.

Galatia was only 2-3 weeks travel time away from Jerusalem. The letter is deemed to have been written around 20 years after the alleged death of the figure in question.

By my reckoning they were already there....

If you mean before the letter then yes, the writer refers to a previous visit.

If you mean something else, what? There would most likely have been people there of other prior (perhaps Celtic or Roman) religions, and probably a small population of Jews.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

The letter, whatever the mental health of the writer, is primarily concerned mainly with one thing, persuading the recipients not to stray away from the writer's previous teachings by instead accepting a different version of the cult beliefs from other proselytisers, who have, apparently, been lecturing to the Galatian converts in the writer's absence. The writer is at pains to establish his credentials as the bearer of the accurate version, by associating himself with the earlier leaders (and also by citing his own USP) but he is clearly by that stage already at odds with them about certain things (eg that new non-Jewish converts should not get circumcised, as the other proselytisers have been demanding they do).

I asked if you had ever witnessed untreated psychotic/manic behavior in an individual because this is what you see. OCD and paranoia are common. If you say "whatever the mental health of the writer" it tells me you are inexperienced in having witnessed and therefore recognizing the behavior. The mental condition of the individual means everything, the mental condition is not an aside. It is the single most important condition I could possibly imagine based on my experience.

I'll grant you that 99.99 percent of the population does not possess my personal awareness and therefore cannot appreciate the condition because they have never had to deal with such a condition in a close person. It's quite the eye opener, and based on everything I've experienced and learned about the subject I see it in this letter.

I can't find the information anymore but remember reading that when alleged followers of Jesus, seems like it was Paul, went into these lands they were surprised to find that there were "christians" there already. At the time I took this to mean that they were not christians in the sense we mean today but another group of people unassociated with what we call "christian."

The wiki article on Galatians is all I've read. There is much disagreement and debate on much of the letter and much of the translation and meaning. It is not a done deal by any stretch as to how exactly the letter fits into the larger christian corpus.

 

[ruby sparks]

I can't find the information anymore but remember reading that when alleged followers of Jesus, seems like it was Paul, went into these lands they were surprised to find that there were "christians" there already. At the time I took this to mean that they were not christians in the sense we mean today but another group of people unassociated with what we call "christian."

Ok. You see if you can find where you read that and get back to me. It sounds dubious to me.

The wiki article on Galatians is all I've read.

Really?

By the way, the 'Paul (or whatever the writer's name actually was) was a loony therefore there's nothing useful or informative to be gleaned from the epistles' is lazy, imo, especially if you haven't even studied the material. As I said, unless you want to assume there were no actual recipients of the letter (in which case, fine, please provide an alternative scenario that is as plausible) then regardless of the writer's mental health, it would make no sense to an addressee who read it (or had it read out to them more like) unless they had in the interim been preached at about the same supposed Judean cult founder by travelling proselytisers other than the writer, and indeed proselytisers who were, unlike the writer, saying they needed to be circumcised before they could be deemed proper converts.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I can't find the information anymore but remember reading that when alleged followers of Jesus, seems like it was Paul, went into these lands they were surprised to find that there were "christians" there already. At the time I took this to mean that they were not christians in the sense we mean today but another group of people unassociated with what we call "christian."

Ok. You see if you can find where you read that and get back to me. It sounds dubious to me.

The wiki article on Galatians is all I've read.

Really?

By the way, the 'Paul (or whatever the writer's name actually was) was a loony therefore there's nothing useful or informative to be gleaned from the epistles' is lazy, imo, especially if you haven't even studied the material. As I said, unless you want to assume there were no actual recipients of the letter (in which case, fine, please provide an alternative scenario that is as plausible) then regardless of the writer's mental health, it would make no sense to an addressee who read it (or had it read out to them more like) unless they had in the interim been preached at about the same supposed Judean cult founder by travelling proselytisers other than the writer, and indeed proselytisers who were, unlike the writer, saying they needed to be circumcised before they could be deemed proper converts.

What are your thoughts about the historical Paul Bunyan? Do you think there is an historical Paul Bunyan?

 

[ruby sparks]

What are your thoughts about the historical Paul Bunyan? Do you think there is an historical Paul Bunyan?

I've already offered some of my thoughts on Paul Bunyan on page 2.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

What are your thoughts about the historical Paul Bunyan? Do you think there is an historical Paul Bunyan?

I've already offered some of my thoughts on Paul Bunyan on page 2.

Folks today are looking for the "historical" Jesus. Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding their intentions and exactly what they mean, and this is why I asked you about Paul Bunyan, which you indicated is possibly a good example of the historical gospel protagonist. It has always been my impression that this "historical Jesus" search has always been for a person, not simply an explanation for the legends.

I can certainly accept that the "historical Jesus" is not a singular person at all but a collection of oral traditions later embellished by authors, identical to what we see in the development of Paul Bunyan. And as you indicated, the Paul Bunyan legends may actually contain an actual human being at their inception. Men claimed to have met him, talked with him and worked with him. His burial site was apparently known to folks, and Fournier is a pretty good candidate.

But we likely both agree that Fournier is not Paul Bunyan and that there cannot be a historical Paul Bunyan. This is because Paul Bunyan is not a person of history but rather a fictional story character of legend and folklore, not reality. Paul Bunyan and his mighty companion Babe are fictional characters, it's just that simple.

But my impression when participating in these discussions is that perhaps because of religious bias, the search for a historical gospel protagonist is not the same thing, religion makes it special, holy, sacred, etc. Certainly someone like Lion is never going to accept that Paul Bunyan and Jesus are the same thing in this respect, fictional characters based on tall tales.

So when someone opines about the best evidence of a historical Jesus are they thinking about a person or about a process?

 

[ruby sparks]

So when someone opines about the best evidence of a historical Jesus are they thinking about a person or about a process?

I reckon most people are talking about the singular person (if he existed). The process you refer to would presumably consist of fiction, folklore and mythologising. So if Fournier was the 'original template' for Bunyan, then people looking for the historical Jesus (probably not his real name if he existed, imo) would be looking for the equivalent of Fournier.

By the way, I think it's pretty speculative that Fournier was the original template for Bunyan. My guess would be 'probably not', based on what little I know. But in a way, that's irrelevant, because Fournier-to-Bunyan is only an illustration in principle of one plausible possibility.

 

[Politesse]

I see a lot of confusion between the terms "historical" and "real" in this thread. They aren't synonyms. "Historical" means something like "as evidenced by the methodology of the historian". I.e., what can historical records such as written documents, archaeological findings, oral histories, and so forth, tell us about the individual? Whether someone exists in a materialist sense is not something historians of the ancient world can usually comment on beyond the speculative, as very few people in the ancient world are described by more than a handful of documents, whatever their importance. At that degree of temporal remove, all people exist as exaagerated portrayals unless they themselves wrote a substantive document of their own lives as per Marcus Aurelius or Augustine of Hippo. For everyone else, you have a curious mix of propaganda, folk narratives, and indirect evidence like the social and political context of their purported lives. Jesus is not unusual in degree of evidence, only in the importance people place on the question when the person at its center is also the semiotic center of a modern faith tradition. We might ask similar questions about the historicity of Caligula, for instance, but people will not feel nearly as invested in the outcome, because no one who is yet living worships Caligula. Jesus is another kettle of fish.

I will also note that many in this thread seem to be under the impression that all or most of the people interested in the Historical Jesus are themselves Christians. This isn't the case, and indeed most Christians consider the Bible itself to be sufficient evidence for Jesus' existence, so excessive interest in historical explorations beyond the Good Book is considered a personal quirk at best by many Christian communities, unles the goal is connected to apologetics or evangelism in some way. But most serious historical study of Jesus (if he existed) and the context in which his narratives arose has been conducted by historians, and most historians adopt a secular approach to their work.

If anything, I think the general attitude of the historian is that speculation about reality beyond what documents can tell you is something of a dubious past-time. Ever tempting, but perilous, and best left to documentarians and popular writers, to be scoffed at from the safe bulwarks of academic detachment. Like a phycisist speculating beyond what has been demonstrated empirically, the post-Enlightenment classical historian starts to feel uncomfortable when straying too far from what their data set can realistically confirm.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If anything, I think the general attitude of the historian is that speculation about reality beyond what documents can tell you is something of a dubious past-time. Ever tempting, but perilous, and best left to documentarians and popular writers, to be scoffed at from the safe bulwarks of academic detachment. Like a phycisist speculating beyond what has been demonstrated empirically, the post-Enlightenment classical historian starts to feel uncomfortable when straying too far from what their data set can realistically confirm.

I think this is the only rational approach one can take. There aren't any Jesus particles out there waiting to be discovered in a collider. It seems presently the lean is to say there was such a person in both a real and a historical sense simply due to the fact that such a person is central to a popular religious enterprise, a condition that makes historical speculation about such an individual something profitable.

 

[Politesse]

If anything, I think the general attitude of the historian is that speculation about reality beyond what documents can tell you is something of a dubious past-time. Ever tempting, but perilous, and best left to documentarians and popular writers, to be scoffed at from the safe bulwarks of academic detachment. Like a phycisist speculating beyond what has been demonstrated empirically, the post-Enlightenment classical historian starts to feel uncomfortable when straying too far from what their data set can realistically confirm.

I think this is the only rational approach one can take. There aren't any Jesus particles out there waiting to be discovered in a collider. It seems presently the lean is to say there was such a person in both a real and a historical sense simply due to the fact that such a person is central to a popular religious enterprise, a condition that makes historical speculation about such an individual something profitable.

That just seems like such a weird claim to me. Maybe it's because I know a lot of historians? I can't imagine any of them deciding that someone is "real" out of deference to religion, unless they're actual Jesuits or something. But unless they are, how is it profitable in any way for an academic to kowtow to a religious group? Confessing to a religious belief is usually career suicide for secular academics, not an advantage.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

If anything, I think the general attitude of the historian is that speculation about reality beyond what documents can tell you is something of a dubious past-time. Ever tempting, but perilous, and best left to documentarians and popular writers, to be scoffed at from the safe bulwarks of academic detachment. Like a phycisist speculating beyond what has been demonstrated empirically, the post-Enlightenment classical historian starts to feel uncomfortable when straying too far from what their data set can realistically confirm.

I think this is the only rational approach one can take. There aren't any Jesus particles out there waiting to be discovered in a collider. It seems presently the lean is to say there was such a person in both a real and a historical sense simply due to the fact that such a person is central to a popular religious enterprise, a condition that makes historical speculation about such an individual something profitable.

That just seems like such a weird claim to me. Maybe it's because I know a lot of historians? I can't imagine any of them deciding that someone is "real" out of deference to religion, unless they're actual Jesuits or something. But unless they are, how is it profitable in any way for an academic to kowtow to a religious group? Confessing to a religious belief is usually career suicide for secular academics, not an advantage.

They're not all academics. Even among academics, who's going to sell more books, the one who concludes that the gospel protagonist is no more real than Paul Bunyan or the one who finds along the lines of religious belief?

 

[Politesse]

That just seems like such a weird claim to me. Maybe it's because I know a lot of historians? I can't imagine any of them deciding that someone is "real" out of deference to religion, unless they're actual Jesuits or something. But unless they are, how is it profitable in any way for an academic to kowtow to a religious group? Confessing to a religious belief is usually career suicide for secular academics, not an advantage.

They're not all academics. Even among academics, who's going to sell more books, the one who concludes that the gospel protagonist is no more real than Paul Bunyan or the one who finds along the lines of religious belief?

Perhaps you could give us an example of a lucrative academic work about the historical Jesus?

Again, I think you're a bit confused about historical Jesus studies. There are, yes, apologetic works that insist that Jesus is "real", and perhaps vaguely reference historical documents. But they aren't doing historical research; that requires a willingness to accept the conclusions your study might lead you to. Calling something like "the case for Christ" a historical study is like calling Deepak Chopra a physicist. And it's annoying, because there actually is a branch of history that studies early Christianity and its central figure, which gets ignored by the Jesus mythers because they are so wedded to their conspiracy theory version of history that they assume anyone who disagrees with them is part of the conspiracy. And ignoring that area of study leaves a giant gaping hole in people's understanding of world history as a whole. The origins of the planet's largest religion will always be significant, especially since the rise of the second largest tradition was strongly tied to it in many respects.

 

[ruby sparks]

... there actually is a branch of history that studies early Christianity and its central figure....

As far as I was aware, and I stand to be corrected of course, the topic of Jesus (as distinct from the topic of early Christianity) is and was, with some exceptions, the domain of the (mostly christian but also in other cases Jewish, or even Muslim) bible scholar. And if the figure gets properly assessed (other than via a basic presumption that he existed) by some classicists, then at least in the past many of those were christian. Add to that that most people, from whatever academy, who took an interest, even if not religious themselves, probably brought a cultural bias.

So I am going to politely say that I think the above quote from your post is an overstatement, at least as regards the central figure. How many such historians can you cite from, say, the last 40 or so years (ie during the timeframe when they could have responded to the modern revival of mythicist theories)? My impression is that secular historians mostly just 'don't want to even go there'.

I have not suddenly changed my views. I do, on balance, think he existed, but imo the evidence is weak and the case ambiguous. But to me it's distinctly more plausible than any detailed explanation that I have read in which it is argued he didn't.

 

[ruby sparks]

My impression is that secular historians mostly just 'don't want to even go there'.

One reason I say that.....

"In respect to what I have called minimum demands there are good reasons for a historian to shrink from judgments on the historicity of the person of Jesus. This means, however, that the historian in this case, as in so many others, will say neither "The evidence is that he lived there and then" nor "The evidence is that he did not live there and then". The logical possibility of the existence of Jesus (at the religiously assumed place and time) cannot be denied, but the evidence seems to be too weak to give such a statement a minimum probability."
(Rolf Torstendahl, professor of history, Uppsala University, Sweden. From 2008 I believe).

Referred to in an interesting discussion (which I have only skimmed) here:
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Talk:Historicity_of_Jesus/Archive_29

Full article from which I have copied and pasted the above quote can be retrieved here (link below) by clicking on "Theologians as Historians" to download the pdf. It's an essay by Allvar Elleghrd (linguist by profession, also a writer on Christianity). Torstendahl's comments on it are near the end:
https://www.google.com/search?q=the...hrome..69i57.444j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

It must be noted that (a) ancient history is not Torstendahl's area of special interest and (b) he's expressing his personal opinion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My general impression is that among modern secular historians generally (there may be exceptions, but I myself do not know of many and can't think of any off the top of my head, other than Richard Carrier*), whether Jesus actually existed is what might be best described as an open question.

You might object to my making a distinction between religious scholars and historians per se, but I do think there is one to be made (although I would not in the end say they are two separate things or that a particular religious scholar is not an historian). I hope it's obvious I'm not discounting (as in considering unworthy of consideration) the work of either theologians or religious scholars, or even the views of anyone (including for example Jesus mythicists) just (ie only) because of potential cultural or other bias. Dispassionate, unbiased views on this, from either or all sides, are about as rare as hen's teeth, imo, and need to be taken into account and waded through. I almost certainly have biases myself.

But I will say this, in the case of reputable, academic religious scholars for example, and unlike most mythicists, at least the good ones know their historical subject matter in great detail, and of course there are, and have been over the years, a small minority among them who are very sceptical indeed about Jesus. Many New atheists have rallied to the latter's cause, sometimes a little too hastily, imo. Jesus is demonstrably still fascinating to many atheists nowadays. Threads about him have usually been among the longest ones, several of which I've enthusiastically participated in, on any atheist forum I've ever been on. And I admit that my own fascination is a little odd and somewhat ironic, or at least amusing (to me).


* A fool for buying into Earl Doherty's dodgy thesis, imo.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

That just seems like such a weird claim to me. Maybe it's because I know a lot of historians? I can't imagine any of them deciding that someone is "real" out of deference to religion, unless they're actual Jesuits or something. But unless they are, how is it profitable in any way for an academic to kowtow to a religious group? Confessing to a religious belief is usually career suicide for secular academics, not an advantage.

They're not all academics. Even among academics, who's going to sell more books, the one who concludes that the gospel protagonist is no more real than Paul Bunyan or the one who finds along the lines of religious belief?

Perhaps you could give us an example of a lucrative academic work about the historical Jesus?

Again, I think you're a bit confused about historical Jesus studies. There are, yes, apologetic works that insist that Jesus is "real", and perhaps vaguely reference historical documents. But they aren't doing historical research; that requires a willingness to accept the conclusions your study might lead you to. Calling something like "the case for Christ" a historical study is like calling Deepak Chopra a physicist. And it's annoying, because there actually is a branch of history that studies early Christianity and its central figure, which gets ignored by the Jesus mythers because they are so wedded to their conspiracy theory version of history that they assume anyone who disagrees with them is part of the conspiracy. And ignoring that area of study leaves a giant gaping hole in people's understanding of world history as a whole. The origins of the planet's largest religion will always be significant, especially since the rise of the second largest tradition was strongly tied to it in many respects.

I understand the academic distinctions and don't disagree. I don't get you conspiracy angle, however. Biblical historicity is not like pure science and research at CERN, biblical research brings tremendous bias, generally speaking, the religious influence is just not ignored. Is there going to be open research into the life of Muhammed in Saudi Arabia? Of course there isn't.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

[MENTION=1498]ruby sparks[/MENTION],

those are good links on the subject. Thank-you.