Did Jesus Exist - Bart Ehrman's new book

[Doulos]

Hi DWill,

The causation I'm claiming is simply that what the Gospels say about the role of the Jews had a great deal to do with their treatment down the ages.

'The Jews' may be too broad a term. Remember that Jesus and his disciples were also Jews, as were the vast majority of their early followers. In the context of the crucifixion, 'the Jews' can perhaps be identified as the "chief priests and the elders." (Matthew 27:20)

[Doulos]

Hi Robert,

That ignores the comple backdrop of economic and social relations between Christians and Jews. It is rather like saying the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland have hated each other because of specifically religious differences, when it is obvious these differences are primarily the surface markers of deeper questions of identity, especially political tribal conflict rooted in war and imperialism.

I agree with your comment on social and economic backdrop, but in trying to place this in a political context of tribal conflict, war and imperialism, I feel you're ignoring the very historical backdrop you're seeking to point to.

In the earliest period of the Jesus 'path' his followers were mainly Jews, and so met in the synagogues. Over time, the gentile and later Jewish followers of the Jewish rabbi Yeshua Ben Yosef were barred from the synagogues, and formed into a distinct group apart from Judaism.

This definitely is an identity issue, but I'm not sure how this can be stretched to mean war and imperialism.

[youkrst]

this whole literalist vs mythicist thing is really something spectacular, like a turning point for humanity. look out we may just slip the chain.

i have noticed the rising trend to try and make mythicist a dirty word

if it's a myth then to be a mythicist is noble to be a literalist is ignoble.

if it's not a myth where the frak is the evidence? erhman's book is pathetic and the fact that ant and other HJ fanboys likes it so much speaks to this very point.

ant?

literalists and HJ freaks must be noticing that like coyote chasing roadrunner they are running out of ground and are about to plunge straight down and dissappear in a poof of smoke at the bottom of the ravine.

i cant wait to visit this subject again in a few years, it's going to be hilarious watching all those willfully ignorant literalists eating their frakking hats.

how about it ant? will you agree that if in a few years you wake up and realise the jesus story is myth, allegory and symbolism will you agree to run naked down the mainstreet of your hometown (something you have already done metaphorically).

in return if it turns out HJ is where it's at then i will agree to burn in literal hell of fiery torment forever and only moan in pain occassionally for good dramatic effect.

[tat tvam asi]

I had an idea for a sci-fi type movie a few years ago that makes light of the HJ debate that's become all the rage:

Imagine a world where the stages we're in right now continue to heat up as technology continues to increase. The movie could start out covering the rise of mythicism and skirt through the first few centuries of the debate, following the strong hold of the church beginning to subside. Then project forward to 2050 or some future date where this HJ debate fuels the need for time travel technology with historicist and mythicist scientists both competing for the first to acheive it.

Then the mythicist inclined scientists have a break through. And they set up a time traveler to go back in time and video document a search for historical accuracy. They set the first search for Nazareth around the supposed time of Christ. They find that no such town even existed at that time (see Ken Humphreys). So they send the time traveler in search of any sign of Jesus' ministry leading up to the crucifixion and even scour over a time period suspected as the time of the crucifixion. Nothing, the sound of crickets. They order a detailed search of every major town mentioned in the gospel's looking for something, anything, that could corroborate an historical gospel Jesus or at the minimum a run of the mill Jesus as hypothesized by Ehrman. It falls flat too.

So word comes back from the future to keep going back in time. So they send the time traveler further back to the supposed time of Solomon and King David. They find no massive kingdom, nothing to corroborate the bible as credible history (see Israel Finkelstein). They go back looking for Joshua's conquest of Canaan. No such luck. They scour the deserts for signs of a massive Exodus of any type, even something small, anything. They draw a blank. Captivity in Egypt. Nada. They seek out evidence of an historical Abraham and his journey's. Still nothing. They decide to go ahead look for a global flood anything resembling an ark of Noah. Never find anything remotely close. Finally they go back to when the Garden of Eden should have existed, by every imaginable date given to it by theologians, and of course come up empty handed. And all of these historical searches are well documented on video for the future to see. At that point, they decide to keep going back and document the various stages of life on the planet going back as far as possible. Evolution is verified. It is discovered that life did emerge from the sea floor and was a natural part of planetary evolution after all.

When the time traveler returns with the documentation all of the scientific information is downloaded and put on the internet and broadcast freely to every corner of the earth without any advanced warning. And there's much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the remaining historicist communities world wide as the result. And thus begins a new age of archeaological research fused with time travel technology. The historicist's gain the ability to go back themselves, but, come up just as empty handed.

Slowly, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have to adapt, adjust, or go by way of the dinosaur like so many ancient faiths before them. And the fundamentalist sects begin to subside in number at a faster rate than ever witnessed. Those wishing to salvage their belief's quickly hustle to find symbolic meaning in their mythologies and necessarily dump the psuedo historical angle they had been promoting previously.

But once the psuedo historical interpretation of the myths falls apart suddenly the tensions between historicist factions begins to naturally subside as the result. The distinct line drawn in the sand between Jew and Gentile doesn't make very sense any more considering that the Jew is in all actuality a Gentile risen up from within the land of Canaan pretending to be otherwise (after confirming Finkelstein and such). The western prejudice against eastern culture and philosophy looses ground. And the world slowly begins to integrate into the next level of an advancing planetary civilization with it's goals shifting away from planetary conquest and inner struggle towards deep space exploration as a unified planet working together for the greater good.......

[Doulos]

This "Errorman" ordeal has worked out pretty good because it brought the existence of the argument to a much larger audience. The backlash from the book (much of it listed in my last post) has shown this newer, larger audience out there, the thin line historicists have to walk on. And of course the book was such a hack job that it works out better for the mythicist position than for the historicist.

I think part of the backlash is because Ehrman was viewed as being within the Mythicist camp.

I think you're right that Ehrman's arguments themselves are less than perfect. I've never found Ehrman to be a particularly strong or compelling thinker except for those who already agree with him. I think the broader context though is that even scholars of Christianity well outside the Conservative Christian camp are accepting the historical reality of Jesus' existance.

Taking a look over the list of Ehrman critics you posted, I'm also struck by the almost complete absence of any academics who are actually in the field in question. I'm afraid I haven't looked through all of them, so please correct me if I've merely chosen a poor representative sampling.

Richard Carrier- Atheist writer
Jerry Coyne- Biology Professor and Atheist
Earl Doherty- BA in Ancient History and Classical Languages
Neil Godfrey- Atheist blogger?
George Albert Wells- Professor of German
Hermann Detering- German Humanist Pastor?

[DWill]

Hi DWill,

The causation I'm claiming is simply that what the Gospels say about the role of the Jews had a great deal to do with their treatment down the ages.

'The Jews' may be too broad a term. Remember that Jesus and his disciples were also Jews, as were the vast majority of their early followers. In the context of the crucifixion, 'the Jews' can perhaps be identified as the "chief priests and the elders." (Matthew 27:20)

My point didn't have to do with correct historical facts. Whatever the facts were, they don't matter when we're looking at the effect of a book. If "Jews" was not a blanket term for a guilty party in the supposed historical context, it certainly became that within a relatively short time and remained so for centuries. How else can the Catholic Church's own hostile stance towards Jews be explained? Another point I was making is that the enmity of Christians toward Jews is an aspect of the Gospel stories that couldn't have been made up. As I understand them, mythicists deny any historical basis in the Gospels.

[youkrst]

love the screenplay Tat

[Doulos]

My point didn't have to do with correct historical facts. Whatever the facts were, they don't matter when we're looking at the effect of a book. If "Jews" was not a blanket term for a guilty party in the supposed historical context, it certainly became that within a relatively short time and remained so for centuries. How else can the Catholic Church's own hostile stance towards Jews be explained? Another point I was making is that the enmity of Christians toward Jews is an aspect of the Gospel stories that couldn't have been made up. As I understand them, mythicists deny any historical basis in the Gospels.

Thanks for the clarification Dwill,

My concern was merely that we don't provide fodder for those who would seek to perpetuate hatred of the Jews on a false Biblical basis. People will always have bias and hate, I would just prefer they don't misconstrue evidence to justify their hate

[tat tvam asi]

Taking a look over the list of Ehrman critics you posted, I'm also struck by the almost complete absence of any academics who are actually in the field in question. I'm afraid I haven't looked through all of them, so please correct me if I've merely chosen a poor representative sampling.

Richard Carrier- Atheist writer
Jerry Coyne- Biology Professor and Atheist
Earl Doherty- BA in Ancient History and Classical Languages
Neil Godfrey- Atheist blogger?
George Albert Wells- Professor of German
Hermann Detering- German Humanist Pastor?

Carrier is a PhD, BTW. But that's besides the point. They were not presented as NT scholars. Did you happen to read through any of the critiques? The Doherty critiques are especially interesting because Ehrman took issue with him and Doherty has taken issue right back. He's dissecting the entire book chapter by chapter in blog form and will publish a book at the tail end of it all which will thoroughly refute Ehrman cover to cover. The problem here that we're looking at a paradigm shift. NT scholarship has been dominated by one particular view and now it's coming to a head. I would expect that in time you will gradually start seeing NT scholars who will have grown up familiar with this perspective. Ehrman admittedly did not grow up familiar with any of this. But I can see that you more or less understand Ehrman's style yourself and do realize that he presented a bit of hack job which could have been done a lot better.

I don't believe that we've met, but I was raised in Adventism and basically grew up in a fundamentalist environment through high school. In my experience I never even questioned whether or not the Jesus of the gospels really existed in history because I just took for granted that it was the most well documented history in existence. I was a full bore believer and fancied the bible as inerrant and infallible. It never even occurred to me that the historicity of the gospel tale may be otherwise until years later when I was reading Joseph Campbell. Now of course Campbell did believe in a type of historical Jesus and never said otherwise that I am aware of, however he constantly compared the Buddha and Christ stories as two similar orders of symbol, two ways of saying the very same thing - that a transcendent energy consciousness (Holy spirit etc.) informs the world and informs you. And he compare these stories point by point. Now as for the Buddha he'd point out that the wise understood this as merely symbolic and no one really thought that there ever was one particular historical Buddha. But the symbolism represents something.

It wasn't long before I began to consider a lot of this along side of learning that there actually isn't any contemporary Roman or Jewish records extant of Jesus' life while he was living. And he wasn't really famed "far and wide" as the gospels suggest. I expected that Christ's crucifixion trial would have been one of the most well documented trials in history and certainly documented and sent back to Rome. But the opposite turns out to be true. And the same for all of the disciples. They are absent from contemporary sources even with all of their supposed antics. And then I was eventually introduced to the mythicist literature after voicing my opinion that like the Buddha, Jesus may have been entire symbolic and created by religious initiates as a figure head in order to promote their various beliefs (contradictory beliefs at times). I didn't even know that such a body of literature existed. So I was curious to read into it and next thing you know I was asking Murdock for answers and defending her at her forum. I was invited to moderate and I accepted.

I can tell you that most mythicists have started out by analyzing all of the points Erhman raises in favor of historicity. These are all of the points that we've been raised on, given by NT scholars, and have since decided to carefully analyze and question for ourselves. And Ehrmans book is basically a case of taking that same starting point material that most start out with and then throwing it back at everyone as if it settles the issue when in reality it's merely the starting point for deeper inquiry. You can literally take Ehrman's book and use it as a way of launching into a skeptical inquiry that leads down a path to where we (mythicists) are right now anyways.

I just wanted to try and articulate how this all actually relates to one of us. And to my knowledge we're not absolute about this in any way. An obscure Ehrman type Jesus could have existed, there's no reason to rule it out as possible. But where is the credible evidence? Where is the certainty that settles it? We're merely taking the approach of healthy skepticism. I prefer to consider the story as mythological and constructed out of midrash, a mix of different possible historical people, and mythological motif oriented until clearly proven otherwise.

[tat tvam asi]

love the screenplay Tat

Now who in Hollywood has the brass balls to follow through with something like that?