Did Paul create Jesus?

[Unknown Soldier]

I think the historic Jesus may have been a rather minor figure (during his lifetime) about whom VERY LITTLE is known for sure except that he was from Galilee, was executed by order of Pontius Pilate (and probably had a brother named James!)

Swammerdami's version of Jesus is ad hoc. We have no evidence that Jesus was "a minor figure;"

I try to write PRECISELY. Had I taken my time I might have been even more careful: "Jesus MIGHT have been a somewhat minor figure" but in any event what I did NOT write is "Jesus MUST have been a minor figure."

Do you know the difference between MUST and MAY, @Unknown Soldier ? I'm sorry if I sound irritated and/or pedantic, BUT You EITHER skimmed my post with low comprehension, OR you find it convenient to erect a strawman.

Your tone is so insulting!

In any case, you offered the possible hypothesis that Jesus was not well known during his lifetime. I responded by critiquing that possibility. If you don't want scenarios you come up with to be scrutinized, then don't suggest them.

certainly nothing in the New Testament describes Jesus that way. Historicists actually claim Jesus was a minor figure to explain away the lack of evidence for Jesus from the time he supposedly live. In so doing they impugn the very sources they use to base his historicity on!

Wrong again.

Let's see.

John the Baptist was likely more famous during his lifetime than Jesus was and he is barely mentioned in surviving texts outside Christian literature.

What evidence do you have that John the Baptist was more famous than Jesus? I don't know of any evidence for that. On the contrary, both Matthew 4:24 and Mark 1:28 state explicitly that Jesus was famous in the regions he supposedly preached in.

Pontius Pilate was the most powerful man in Judaea for a while and, again, historical mentions, while exceeding Jesus', are rather uncommon.

Not at all. I'd recommend you do some research rather than just parrot apologists. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

Sources
Sources on Pontius Pilate are limited, although modern scholars know more about him than about other Roman governors of Judaea.[11] The most important sources are the Embassy to Gaius (after the year 41) by contemporary Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria,[12] the Jewish Wars (c. 74) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94) by the Jewish historian Josephus, as well as the four canonical Christian Gospels, Mark (composed between 66–70), Luke (composed between 85–90), Matthew (composed between 85–90), and John (composed between 90–110);[11] he is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (composed between 85–90)[13] and by the First Epistle to Timothy (written in the second half of the 1st century).[14] Ignatius of Antioch mentions him in his epistles to the Trallians, Magnesians, and Smyrnaeans[15] (composed between 105–110 AD).[16] He is also briefly mentioned in Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century AD), who simply says that he put Jesus to death.[11] Two additional chapters of Tacitus's Annals that might have mentioned Pilate have been lost.[17] Besides these texts, dated coins in the name of emperor Tiberius minted during Pilate's governorship have survived, as well as a fragmentary short inscription that names Pilate, known as the Pilate Stone, the only inscription about a Roman governor of Judaea predating the Roman-Jewish Wars to survive.[18][19][20] The written sources provide only limited information and each has its own biases, with the gospels in particular providing a theological rather than historical perspective on Pilate.

We have far better evidence for Pilate than for Jesus.

If Jesus had actually raised the rotting corpse of Lazarus from the dead, or walked on water in the presence of witnesses, might such a deed have been mentioned in a preserved papyrus? Maybe, maybe not. But anyway very few, if any, here are arguing that Jesus really performed miraculous deeds.

Then there's not much left of him! It's really weird to argue that a miracle worker lived only to say he wasn't a miracle worker.

In any event, the story should help Infidels realize the absurd wrongness of the claim that if Jesus were highly charismatic and admired, his story would have surely been preserved by multiple sources. In an age where parchment and the hire of scribes was very expensive, no less.

Oh sure, it's possible that a famous Jesus went unnoticed by the historians of his day, but it's not likely. If you want to make a strong inductive argument, then your premise(s) needs to have a probability exceeding 50 percent.

 

[TomC]

Then there's not much left of him!

Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds to those of us aware of the existence of Christianity?
Tom

 

[James Brown]

I dunno.

A long line of editors, copyists, and redactors said that Paul said that Peter said that five hundred anonymous people said that they all saw the exact same thing--a person that they knew intimately, that they knew had been killed, was maybe standing on a hill somewhere.

And from that, people confidently declare "We have eyewitnesses!"

It beggars the imagination. Do we think that Paul carefully interviewed each and every one of the five hundred? Or that Peter did? Is the round number of Five Hundred suspicious in any way? Was someone counting noses on that fateful day, or did someone just look at a crowd and take a guess? Is it possible that number got inflated? Do you suppose an apologist would have an incentive to inflate that number in order to bolster their claims?

And what about the five hundred? Do we know the names of any one of them? Are they generally reliable witnesses? Were they sympathetic to the Jesus cult, or hostile, or neutral? How reliable is 'eyewitness testimony'? What would a lawyer say if someone on a witness stand said, "I was told a bunch of people saw something miraculous." (She would say, "Objection! Hearsay!" and the judge would say, "Sustained.") How many of the five hundred had seen Jesus personally before the crucifixion, well enough to identify him later? How many of them observed the crucifixion itself?

It's not hard to imagine an alternative scenario. Someone shouts, "Hey look, it's Jesus!" And others say, "That's Jesus, the guy everyone's talking about? He's shorter than what I imagined. Wasn't he killed last week? Maybe I misheard that. Well, this guy is really confident that's Jesus, so I guess it is." Which is more likely, a corpse rising from the grave, or a bunch of people mistakenly led to believe in a miracle?

From what I see in the gospels, if there is one constant among the post-resurrection appearances, it is a case of mistaken identity.

 

[steve_bank]

Every time I hear Richard Carrier invoked I hear an angelic chorus. Doesn't everybody?

There is money to made in books by both atheists and theists alike. Both sides need each other.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Swammerdami's version of Jesus is ad hoc. We have no evidence that Jesus was "a minor figure;" certainly nothing in the New Testament describes Jesus that way. Historicists actually claim Jesus was a minor figure to explain away the lack of evidence for Jesus from the time he supposedly live. In so doing they impugn the very sources they use to base his historicity on!

Everybody's version of Jesus is ad hoc. In the absence of strong evidence there's nothing else but ad hoc.

You may not understand what I mean by "ad hoc." In logic, the term ad hoc describes a premise in an argument that has these two properties:

1. The premise is unsubstantiated.
2. The premise only serves to support a hoped-for conclusion.

So in the context of the Jesus-myth debate, those who desire that Jesus existed try to fend off arguments that no historian of his day mention him by asserting that Jesus was "small time." We have no evidence for that claim other than that nobody mentions Jesus, and to say Jesus is small time only serves to preserve the conclusion that he existed nevertheless.

Because not everybody in the Jesus-myth uses ad hoc premises (I don't), then it is not true that all hypotheses about Jesus are ad hoc.

I find the existence of a community that eventually became Christianity sufficient to believe that there's a kernel of truth at the heart of the Jesus "Legend of the Christ".

Yes. That "kernel" is most likely Paul.

Everything about the Gospels suggests that Jesus was a minor figure in His day. An "unsung demigod", as it were.

That isn't true. See Matthew 4:24, Mark 1:28, and Luke 6:17.

But also, something clearly happened. Christianity is the biggest religion on the planet. The most plausible explanation, to me, is a minor figure with an unusual back story got deified by later people with agendas of their own.

Why couldn't Paul have invented that deity?

I find it most plausible that certain known, but embarrassing, facts about His life got turned into miracles. Like "bastard child of Roman centurion" became "Son of God, born to Virgin Mary", that sort of thing.

That's very possible, but if those who wrote of Jesus so liberally lied about him, then I think it's foolish to rely on them to tell us that Jesus existed at all.

 

[steve_bank]

In common usage ad hoc means unplanned and cobbled together

An 'ad hoc' solution tp a problem.. An ad hoc argument. Spur of the moment.

 

[excreationist]

I dunno.

A long line of editors, copyists, and redactors said that Paul said that Peter said that five hundred anonymous people said that they all saw the exact same thing--a person that they knew intimately, that they knew had been killed, was maybe standing on a hill somewhere.

And from that, people confidently declare "We have eyewitnesses!"

It beggars the imagination. Do we think that Paul carefully interviewed each and every one of the five hundred? Or that Peter did? Is the round number of Five Hundred suspicious in any way?

1 Corinthians 15:6 (it isn't really a round number)
"After that, he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at the same time. Most of them are still living. But some have died"
Though it would be difficult for a human witness to know the exact number (but in theory the holy spirit could give them exact knowledge like that).

.....From what I see in the gospels, if there is one constant among the post-resurrection appearances, it is a case of mistaken identity.

Yes I think they're all based on mistaken identity too (unless one or two of the stories were made up completely)

The appearance to more than 500 is plausible because an appearance to 6000 happened....

V: Jesus in Nairobi, Kenya, 1988

________________________________________________________________________ Compare the photos of Jesus and me to see the resemblance! My previous self, Jesus, was briefly sent to Earth in 1988 &#8211…

stigdragholm.wordpress.com

While I'd say that it involved a mass hallucination of 500+ (perhaps involving some lights moving around in the sky) or that the story was completely fabricated aren't very good explanations.

 

[Eldarion Lathria]

I've talked to people who've sworn they've seen Elvis since 1977. Couldn't the people who saw Jesus be like them?

Eldarion Lathria

 

[steve_bank]

I've talked to people who've sworn they've seen Elvis since 1977. Couldn't the people who saw Jesus be like them?

Eldarion Lathria

That is a pretty good analogy.

 

[TomC]

I've talked to people who've sworn they've seen Elvis since 1977. Couldn't the people who saw Jesus be like them?

Eldarion Lathria

I once met someone at a party who had met Frodo.

My best guess was mild mental issues and major drug use. In a place where Tolkien nerds were rife.
I dunno.

Neither I nor anybody else there was mean/honest enough to say "That's stupid"

For all I know he met someone at a Halloween party in a hobbit costume calling himself Frodo.
Tom

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Then there's not much left of him!

Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds to those of us aware of the existence of Christianity?

I didn't know that some people are not aware of the existence of Christianity.

In any case, you appear to be arguing that there would be no Christianity if there had been no Christ. That sounds as logical as arguing that there would be no cult of Zeus if there had been no Zeus. You should read the OP. Paul is sufficient to explain the existence of Christianity. Christ is optional.

 

[TomC]

In any case, you appear to be arguing that there would be no Christianity if there had been no Christ.

That's not what I'm saying.

I've said, several times, I doubt that Christ and Jesus have much in common. Jesus is probably real. Christ is mythical.

I try not to confuse the two concepts, real and mythical.
Tom

 

[steve_bank]

I agree. We have no way of knwing who Jesus was and the relation to what Chrtianity became.

Modern theology I believe stems from the Council Of Nicaea that Constantine ordered to have Christians resolve violent conflicts over what Christianity is.

Christianity was full of conflicting beliefs, and still is. Christians continually reinvent themselves. Who Jesus may have been quickly became irrelevant.

Paul invented his own version going by the NT.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

In any case, you appear to be arguing that there would be no Christianity if there had been no Christ.

That's not what I'm saying.

Back on post #122 you said:

Do you realize how ridiculous this sounds to those of us aware of the existence of Christianity?

So what does that have to do with this?

I've said, several times, I doubt that Christ and Jesus have much in common. Jesus is probably real. Christ is mythical.

I try not to confuse the two concepts, real and mythical.

You don't mention anything here about the existence of Christianity. I fail to see how the existence of Christianity is related to the supposed difference between Jesus and Christ.

In any event, you're arguing a false difference. Most people see Jesus as the Christ. "Jesus" is his name and "Christ" is his title--it's the same guy.

So why argue that Jesus is real? If you're referring to a generic "John-Doe-Jew," then yes, I agree that some Jewish preacher named Jesus was crucified by the Romans in the first century for sedition. The problem is that there was probably more than one such Jesus, and no single one of them was likely the Jesus who supposedly inspired the New Testament.

As for Paul, he could have easily been inspired by these crucified preachers to create a god with a generous dose of Hellenistic mythology tossed in to please the Gentiles in case the Jews wouldn't go for it.

And guess what? It worked!

 

[steve_bank]

'Jesus' is the fabrication.

Jesus Christ, Christos is a Greek term.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I agree. We have no way of knwing who Jesus was and the relation to what Chrtianity became.

I suppose archaeological discoveries could make a good case for the existence of Jesus and what he was like. I've often thought that a "Jesus scroll" might be discovered some day that dates to the early first century and was written by a named Greek trader doing business in Judea--let's call him "Theseus." Theseus identifies himself in his scroll about Jesus. He writes that he knew of Jesus being an eye witness to him and his ministry and his crucifixion by the Romans. Theseus explains how he knows what he writes although he was not a member of the sect.

 

[Swammerdami]

I think the historic Jesus may have been a rather minor figure (during his lifetime) about whom VERY LITTLE is known for sure except that he was from Galilee, was executed by order of Pontius Pilate (and probably had a brother named James!)

Swammerdami's version of Jesus is ad hoc. We have no evidence that Jesus was "a minor figure;"

I try to write PRECISELY. Had I taken my time I might have been even more careful: "Jesus MIGHT have been a somewhat minor figure" but in any event what I did NOT write is "Jesus MUST have been a minor figure."

Do you know the difference between MUST and MAY, @Unknown Soldier ? I'm sorry if I sound irritated and/or pedantic, BUT You EITHER skimmed my post with low comprehension, OR you find it convenient to erect a strawman.

Your tone is so insulting!

You started the insults. I'm happy to be friends. In any case, do you deny that you treated my "May" as "Must"?

Pontius Pilate was the most powerful man in Judaea for a while and, again, historical mentions, while exceeding Jesus', are rather uncommon.

Not at all. I'd recommend you do some research rather than just parrot apologists. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

... The most important sources are the Embassy to Gaius (after the year 41) by contemporary Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria,[12] the Jewish Wars (c. 74) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94) by the Jewish historian Josephus, as well as the four canonical Christian Gospels, Mark (composed between 66–70), Luke (composed between 85–90), Matthew (composed between 85–90), and John (composed between 90–110);[11] he is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (composed between 85–90)[13] and by the First Epistle to Timothy (written in the second half of the 1st century).[14] Ignatius of Antioch mentions him in his epistles to the Trallians, Magnesians, and Smyrnaeans[15] (composed between 105–110 AD).[16] He is also briefly mentioned in Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century AD), who simply says that he put Jesus to death.[11] Two additional chapters of Tacitus's Annals that might have mentioned Pilate have been lost.[17] Besides these texts, dated coins in the name of emperor Tiberius minted during Pilate's governorship have survived, as well as a fragmentary short inscription that names Pilate, known as the Pilate Stone, the only inscription about a Roman governor of Judaea predating the Roman-Jewish Wars to survive.[18][19][20]...

I've reddened the mentions of Pilate found in works about Christ, and Tacitus' "who simply says that he put Jesus to death." After crossing out the extraneous (what Tacitus MIGHT have written!) we have accounted for most of the items on Wiki's list!

If Jesus had actually raised the rotting corpse of Lazarus from the dead, or walked on water in the presence of witnesses, might such a deed have been mentioned in a preserved papyrus? Maybe, maybe not. But anyway very few, if any, here are arguing that Jesus really performed miraculous deeds.

Then there's not much left of him! It's really weird to argue that a miracle worker lived only to say he wasn't a miracle worker.

You seem to think the ONLY possibilities are (a) Jesus performed supernatural signs and wonders, (b) Jesus never existed at all. The large majority of Non-Christian scholars adhere to NEITHER of those positions. I have been consistent in my stance. Would it be insulting to suggest that you read up on what scholars other than Carrier think?

If you want to make a strong inductive argument, then your premise(s) needs to have a probability exceeding 50 percent.

Cite?

 

[excreationist]

If you want to make a strong inductive argument, then your premise(s) needs to have a probability exceeding 50 percent.

Cite?

Doing the Math: Historicity of Jesus Edition • Richard Carrier

I am a Bayesian epistemologist. And in line with the independent findings of the philosopher of history Aviezer Tucker, I developed and applied under peer review a way to model historical reasoning with Bayes’ Theorem (method, in Proving History; application, in On the Historicity of Jesus)...

www.richardcarrier.info

Richard Carrier has said:

...in the end, this is how the math in there works out, leaving us with almost a 33% chance Jesus existed—at best. Because that’s with remarkably generous evaluations of the evidence, giving historicity every possible fair turn, assigning it remarkably high odds in every case of producing or matching the evidence we have, even despite how frequently unusual that evidential turnout was...

 

[TomC]

"..in the end, this is how the math in there works out, leaving us with almost a 33% chance Jesus existed—at best."

If you start with an answer, it's easy to plug in values until the equation balances. Lumpenproletariat uses a similar system to reach the answer "Jesus is 95% likely to have worked miracles".

Putting a fancy name on your system doesn't make it any more authoritative.
Tom

 

[Unknown Soldier]

I think the historic Jesus may have been a rather minor figure (during his lifetime) about whom VERY LITTLE is known for sure except that he was from Galilee, was executed by order of Pontius Pilate (and probably had a brother named James!)

Swammerdami's version of Jesus is ad hoc. We have no evidence that Jesus was "a minor figure;"

I try to write PRECISELY. Had I taken my time I might have been even more careful: "Jesus MIGHT have been a somewhat minor figure" but in any event what I did NOT write is "Jesus MUST have been a minor figure."

Do you know the difference between MUST and MAY, @Unknown Soldier ? I'm sorry if I sound irritated and/or pedantic, BUT You EITHER skimmed my post with low comprehension, OR you find it convenient to erect a strawman.

Your tone is so insulting!

...do you deny that you treated my "May" as "Must"?

That issue is irrelevant to the topic of this thread, so I'm not going to pursue it. But just let me explain that this is a debate forum, and anything you state or even imply is fair game for criticism. If you post that something might be true, then everybody else here can argue that it might not be true. I demonstrated that to argue that Jesus was a minor figure in his day, a possibility you raised, is an ad hoc hypothesis.

Pontius Pilate was the most powerful man in Judaea for a while and, again, historical mentions, while exceeding Jesus', are rather uncommon.

Not at all. I'd recommend you do some research rather than just parrot apologists. Here's what Wikipedia has to say:

... The most important sources are the Embassy to Gaius (after the year 41) by contemporary Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria,[12] the Jewish Wars (c. 74) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94) by the Jewish historian Josephus, as well as the four canonical Christian Gospels, Mark (composed between 66–70), Luke (composed between 85–90), Matthew (composed between 85–90), and John (composed between 90–110);[11] he is also mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (composed between 85–90)[13] and by the First Epistle to Timothy (written in the second half of the 1st century).[14] Ignatius of Antioch mentions him in his epistles to the Trallians, Magnesians, and Smyrnaeans[15] (composed between 105–110 AD).[16] He is also briefly mentioned in Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus (early 2nd century AD), who simply says that he put Jesus to death.[11] Two additional chapters of Tacitus's Annals that might have mentioned Pilate have been lost.[17] Besides these texts, dated coins in the name of emperor Tiberius minted during Pilate's governorship have survived, as well as a fragmentary short inscription that names Pilate, known as the Pilate Stone, the only inscription about a Roman governor of Judaea predating the Roman-Jewish Wars to survive.[18][19][20]...

I've reddened the mentions of Pilate found in works about Christ, and Tacitus' "who simply says that he put Jesus to death." After crossing out the extraneous (what Tacitus MIGHT have written!) we have accounted for most of the items on Wiki's list!

OK. What's your point?

If Jesus had actually raised the rotting corpse of Lazarus from the dead, or walked on water in the presence of witnesses, might such a deed have been mentioned in a preserved papyrus? Maybe, maybe not. But anyway very few, if any, here are arguing that Jesus really performed miraculous deeds.

Then there's not much left of him! It's really weird to argue that a miracle worker lived only to say he wasn't a miracle worker.

You seem to think the ONLY possibilities are (a) Jesus performed supernatural signs and wonders, (b) Jesus never existed at all. The large majority of Non-Christian scholars adhere to NEITHER of those positions. I have been consistent in my stance. Would it be insulting to suggest that you read up on what scholars other than Carrier think?

That's not insulting at all! In addition to Carrier, I've read books on this subject by other scholars like Robert Price and history writers like David Fitzgerald.

And speaking of Robert Price, he poses a very astute analogy between Jesus and Superman: If we wish to try to demonstrate that Jesus existed only he wasn't a miracle-working God, then we might as well conclude that Superman existed only he was merely the mild-mannered newspaper reporter, Clark Kent. Bob's point is that it will do us no good to try to prove A by proving B. That's valid logic if B isn't A. So since a Jewish peasant preacher who got himself crucified by the Romans and is dead and gone isn't the Jesus of the New Testament, then proving the peasant preacher doesn't prove Jesus.

If you want to make a strong inductive argument, then your premise(s) needs to have a probability exceeding 50 percent.

Cite?

I'm glad you asked! It's common knowledge that any claim that has a probability of being true that is 50 percent or less is by definition not probably true. So any argument based on such a premise is not probably true. For further study, I'd recommend Schaum's Outline of Logic, Second Edition. Chapter 9 on induction should be especially helpful. I've used that book to learn logic because in addition to my being a debater, I'm also a mathematician and am currently studying how to prove mathematical theorems. Applying that kind of knowledge to the issue of the historicity of Jesus allows me to spot weak and fallacious arguments, and I've seen plenty of those in the arguments for a real Jesus.