Part 20 of my Historical Jesus series
Raphael Lataster wrote in an article in 2014:
“Even when discussing what appear to be the resurrection and the last supper, his only stated sources are his direct revelations from the Lord, and his indirect revelations from the Old Testament. In fact, Paul actually rules out human sources (see Galatians 1:11-12).” [1]
Yet Paul does indeed hint at alternate forms of knowledge about Jesus. While he is adamant that his specific circumcision-free gospel was received via revelation, he also has to concede that he once went to meet with Peter, James and John to run his understanding of the gospel by them to ensure that he “had not run in vain.” (Gal. 2:2).
In the last part we discussed Gal. 1:11-12 where many mythicists think that Jesus is a revelatory being only, and this revelatory Jesus was Paul’s only source of information on the gospel (doctrines) of the Jesus movement. This tends to be the crux of the Carrier-Doherty hypothesis and other agnostic adherents such as Lataster. Granted it is clear that he considers his own inventions as something given from above. Yet it is only when Paul claims he gets his information (or knowledge gnosis) on some of the aspects of the gospel which happen to be in contradiction to the movement’s gospel, that Paul says he gets it from revelatory Jesus. Yet not everything he gets is from revelation (except his own version of the gospel which is in contradiction to the movement’s gospel).
When Paul joined, he received the gospel from the movement and distorted it himself as I will show in this article.
“Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Gal. 1:7)
From that passage you can see the opponents of Paul had the same gospel about Jesus but were ‘correcting’ Paul’s version.
Paul is so jealous of the Jamesian side checking up on him (2 Cor.11:4, Gal. 1.6-9) that it is evident this movement was around before he joined. Also there is evidence of pre-existing creeds (eg 1 Rom. 1:3-4 ;1 Cor.15:3-8) and pre existing ritual (1 Cor. 11:22-25) that all show a thriving movement in existence. (Discussed below).
As seen in the last part, Paul was on James’s circumcision team at first. You can see the earlier expression of the Jesus movement but now Paul was now coming out of the law observant aspect:
“Brothers and sisters, if I am still preaching circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? In that case the offense of the cross has been abolished.” (Gal. 5:11)
Here in this article I show you that Paul does not rule out human sources for everything. That agnosticism on the historicity of Jesus is not necessary. In fact with my last bunch of blogs (here, here, here and here) and this one, historicity can quite easily be established.
Sometimes Paul gets his information from sources other than revelation (apocalypse).
The fact that Paul specifically claims he has a revelation proves this to be an exception to the rule that generally he “receives” tradition. His need to explicitly note his revelation proves that he differentiates revelation from regular reception/teaching which he does in Galatians:
“1:12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by a revelation (apokalypseōs, ἀποκαλύψεως) from Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.” (Gal. 1:12-13)
•In Gal. 1:12 specifically notes that this specific kind of “received” bit he got was not from man or a teaching (didache).
•In Gal. 1.13 Paul openly claimed that he used to persecute Christians before he converted. Which means he must have known at least something about what Christians preach before his conversion (he wouldn’t have persecuted them for literally no reason). Which in turn means he learned at least something about what Christians preached from other men. Not everything Paul learned about Jesus was from revelation, it’s only his version of gospel that Paul learned from his own revelation. This was so Paul could legitimise his version of the gospel above those of the “pillars”.
“Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you and speak in tongues, what good will I be to you, unless I bring you some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or word of instruction?” (1 Cor. 14:6)
As seen in this verse Paul explicitly defines a difference where he distinguishes teachings (didache) from revelation. Other examples of his explicit notation of revelation include Galatians 2:2, Romans 16:25, 2 Cor. 12:7.
“I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.” (Gal. 2:2)
Here in these examples he isn’t saying he received a tradition, but received his “gospel” via a “revelation” (apocalypse).
Why was Paul afraid of running … in vain? He feared of being turfed out of the movement, so he was comparing his gospel with that of the Jerusalem council. As Gerd Lüdemann once stated, they hardly talked about the weather. So in this example of revelation it still has human source on the gospel of the Jerusalem Council.
So in these ‘revelation’ verses means that because he treats these as separate categories, unless he is explicitly saying he has revelation, there is no reason to accept that revelation was how he received the tradition. I will note other examples where he explicitly distinguishes between:
a) that which is taught and received, and b) that which is revealed.
Now let me discuss a different source.
“I praise you for remembering me in everything and for holding to the traditions just as I passed them on to you.” (1 Cor 11:2)
From that verse you see Paul is passing on traditions he got from the movement. Paul also indicates himself he received his gospel message from others in First Corinthians:
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance”(1 Cor. 15:3)
Paul himself had received a Christian message, before he started to proclaim it. This particular tradition that Paul passes on is a pre-Pauline creed. (Discussed next section) Paul uses the language of passing on an oral tradition. Here, the language is like a tradition that has been refined into a creed. It’s evidence for what people before Paul believed. Paul isn’t saying he got this from mystical sources (dreams, revelations). He’s saying the opposite.
Paul’s Last Supper formula origin (1 Cor.11:22-25) is that he is passing on what he has received and that he thinks the origin is Jesus. By implication of the terminology he uses, his tutors or predecessors gave it to him. Or he simply learnt it from participating in Jewish Christian communities. The idea that he received everything in visions from above is not a proper nuance of what’s going on here.
The terminology of “received” (paralambano, παραλαμβάνω ) and “delivered,” (paradidómi, παραδίδωμι) as often noted by scholars, is the kind of language commonly used in Jewish circles to refer to traditions that are handed on from one teacher to the next.” [2]
In rabbinic literature the chain of tradition is given as follows: Moses **received** the Torah on Sinai and **delivered** it to Joshua, who in turn delivered it to the elders, the elders to the prophets, and the prophets to the Men of the Great Synagogue (Perkei Avot 1:1).
Paul is very emphatic about the fact that what he got from Jesus in visions was confirmed by what the apostles were already teaching. The only reason he says he gets things directly from visions was to put himself above the ‘pillars’. Paul always tries to make himself out greater than the ‘pillars’ so of course he says “he received it from the Lord” (what better authority), Paul would never have been so foolish to use common Jewish terminology “paralambano” which indicates he is receiving a tradition handed down. This indicates a ritual picked up rather than something Paul just hallucinated.
This Last Supper formula also has the markers of a Jewish Oral Tradition which is taken to mean that this is actually the oldest piece we have about Jesus, this along with other pre Pauline traditions (discussed below) incorporated in Paul’s epistles show it is already an oral tradition before Paul receives it.
Which means that because he treats these as separate categories, unless he is explicitly saying he has revelation, there is no reason to accept that revelation was how he received the tradition (because he otherwise explicitly notes said revelations).
PRE-PAULINE LITERATURE INCORPORATED IN PAULS EPISTLES.
Bart Ehrman tells many pre Pauline traditions. [3] They are in a different style – poetic vs. the usual prose of Paul’s work. I will examine these now.
Paul’s Last Supper formula
In First Corinthians as discussed already indicates a church ritual tradition of Eucharist (thanksgiving) already widespread.
“For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1 Cor. 11:22-25)
Paul actually gives the hint that this “new” ritual is an ancient idea, the consuming of Christ as “spiritual food” in 1 Cor. 10:1-17
“Our forefathers … ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ …
Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” (1 Cor. 10:1-17).
In another graphic metaphor Paul speaks of “Christ, our Passover lamb” (1 Cor. 5:7) and he piles in references to yeast, bread, dough and anything else he can think of to give his ritual fulsome Jewish antecedents. It was a celebratory meal held by communicants. Consummation of a God has a very ancient pedigree that goes back to Egyptian times.
Creed at the start of Romans
“Concerning his Son—born from David’s seed according to the flesh, 4Marked out by resurrection of the dead as God’s Son in power according to a spirit of holiness—Jesus the Anointed, our Lord, “. (Rom. 1:3-4)
Seems to be a quotation of an earlier hymn or creed. This particular creed shows that the earliest Christians thought that Jesus became divine after his resurrection.
These pre Pauline traditions show post resurrection adoptionest views, where God adopted his son as divine sonship after the resurrection. (Later adoptionists using the gospels, implied God adopted his son at the baptism).
(Cf Acts 13:32-34).
Here is the reconstructed creed:
“Born from David’s seed,
Concerning his son,
According to the flesh,
Marked out by Resurrection,
of the dead, Son of God,
According to the Spirit.”
The Philippians hymn
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient
to the point of death—
even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
E P Sanders just shows Paul picking up traditions some of which just contradicted each other, “The two most substantial passages in which he commented on who Jesus was are Romans 1:1–6 and Philippians 2:5–11. In the first passage he states that Jesus was ‘descended from David according to the flesh and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead’. The reader of this passage would understand that Jesus was ‘designated’ Son of God, and further that he was designated such only at the time of the resurrection. In later terminology, this is an ‘adoptionist’ Christology. Jesus was adopted by God as Son, not born that way.
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth
and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
(Philippians 2:6-11; Cf Isaiah 45:23-25)
The second passage goes to the other extreme. According to Philippians 2:5–11, Jesus was ‘in the form of God’ before he was born, but then he took on ‘the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men’. The passage continues, ‘and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death’. God ‘highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name’, that is, Lord. Here, strikingly, the word ‘Son’ does not appear. Instead one gets ‘form’: Jesus was in the form of God, then he was in the form of a slave, that is, he was in human form…..the passage basically states that Jesus Christ was pre-existent and was in some sense divine, but that he became human before being exalted even higher than he had originally been, to the status ‘Lord’.
One sees that it is impossible to derive from Paul’s letters anything approaching one single doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ. It is possible that both the passages just quoted are pre-Pauline in origin, in which case they show that he drew on, rather than composed, quite diverse statements, one offering a ‘low’ Christology, the other a ‘high’ Christology.” [4].
Resurrection creed
This creed has a number of indications that it was not Paul’s writing and is pre Pauline. There are grammatical formations that are foreign to Paul such as the verb “he appeared” to the “twelve”.
The original creed is in vv.3-8. The second half of v.6 (“many of whom survive”) and all of v.8 (“last of all he appeared even to me….”) are Paul’s comments on the tradition. There are reasons for thinking the original creed was contained in vv.3-5., this produces a very tightly formulated, brilliantly structured creedal statement.
1a Christ died
2b For our sins
3c In accordance with the scriptures
4a and he was buried
1b Christ was raised
2b on the third day
3b In accordance to the scriptures
4b And he appeared to James.
(Ehrman has Cephas at the end of this creed but it could just as easily have been James as he is also mentioned and was the leader of the Jerusalem church according to Gal 2:12).
Conclusion
In conclusion to this blog I will reiterate the mythicist position as repeated by Carrier and show how easily it can be dismissed in three steps.
Carrier asks in one of his blogs, “When we sweep away all imaginary and hypothetical evidence and draw conclusions solely from actual evidence (and stop using fallacious, self-refuting arguments), we end up with at least one plausible alternative (as a dozen experts now agree): when Paul appears to say the only way anyone ever met Jesus is in visions, how it appears is how it was. That is in fact the simplest explanation of the evident facts. We can retool our hypothesis of historicity, add a bunch of ad hoc excuses for why Paul would only ever, and repeatedly, talk that way and no other, despite Jesus having recently been a renowned executed criminal who hand-picked his Disciples in life. And with that newly elaborate theory we can get the evidence in Paul at least to fit our new hypothesis. But that it fits does not make it the more probable. It rather only leaves us with at best a 50/50 chance it is what it seems, or it is what you have elaborately now proposed. So what evidence do you have that your newly elaborated theory is correct? You can’t circularly appeal to your hypothesis as evidence for your hypothesis. And you can’t fabricate evidence that doesn’t exist. So what then?” [5].
All this is quite easily answered,
1) Paul never says that is the only way people knew of Jesus. (Of course if a person is dead, the only way of contact from then on is through visions, but that was not the only ever way as Carrier insists. (When Jesus was alive as on the historicist hypothesis then obviously before he was executed you could have met him in person. Sorry to be so obvious but some obvious facts staring mythicists in the face have to be spelled out to them).
2) Only one passage refers to Paul getting his Gospel by Revelation.
3) This passage is about a specific salvific message of Jesus, not his life.
So really mythicism is only more probable with Carrier insisting on only his interpretations and his own readings into Paul’s epistles. It is much better let the epistles interpret themselves using comparable apocalyptic Jewish literature and attitudes of first century apocalyptic Jews so that these epistles will no longer sound so “weird” as Carrier often states. Given an examination of Paul’s sources, has more than sufficiently refuted the idea that Jesus was a revelatory being only.
(I wish to thank Christopher M. Hansen and Tim O’ Neill whose commentary in my Facebook group [6] helped immensely with this blog).
Back to HOMEPAGE
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[1] Lataster, Raphael, The Truth About ‘Historical Jesus’ in this link
http://theconversation.com/weighing-up-the-evidence-for-the-historical-jesus-35319
[2] Ehrman, Bart, Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth, (Harper Collins, 2012), p.122.
[3] Bart Ehrman, How Jesus became God, ch4.
[4] E P Sanders, Paul: A Very Short Introduction, ch8
[5] Extract taken from this blog:
Dave Allens blog 
make a response to this https://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/kloppenborg-on-dispensing-with-q-nts/
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could you respond to this by that idiot http://www.raphaellataster.com/
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Weak argument against you by Neil Godfrey could you respond to the short comment Recall the Gospel of Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus delivering a parable of the sheep and the goats at the last judgement: Matthew 25:31-41. Now that’s a parable with a message about good works and no hint of any need to believe in Jesus or the saving grace of Jesus’ death and resurrection. What are we to make of this parable? Here is Bart Ehrman’s view.
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What is striking about this story, when considered in view of the criterion of dissimilarity, is that there is nothing distinctively Christian about it. That is to say, the future judgment is not based on belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection, but on doing good things for those in need. Later Christians-including most notably Paul (see, e.g., I Thess. 4:14-18), but also the writers of the Gospels-maintained that it was belief in Jesus that would bring a person into the coming Kingdom. But nothing in this passage even hints at the need to believe in Jesusper se.. It doesn’t seem likely that a Christian would formulate a passage in just this way. The conclusion? It probably goes back to Jesus.
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(Ehrman, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet, p. 136. “Coincidentally” Ehrman has posted again on this same line of argument.)
Such an argument demonstrates the power of later “orthodox” Christianity to guide the vision and judgment of a modern scholar. Ehrman relies upon the writings of Paul’s “genuine letters and the canonical gospels to define his view of what was Christian “tradition”, even how to define Christianity.
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Ente
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It is all too easy to overlook the noncanonical literature that also sheds light on earliest Christianity and at the same time to forget that Paul was a disruptive presence, a most controversial figure, among other early Christians as his own letters testify.
Another early writing from around the same time as the Gospel of Matthew is the Didache. The Didache purports to be a message by “the twelve apostles to the nations” and it at not point indicates any interest in, or even knowledge of, Jesus as a crucified figure. The eucharist is an important instruction in the Didache but it is a thanksgiving meal without any suggestion of association with a sacrament commemorating the death
of Jesus.
Other scholars have also noted Q’s absence of interest in a crucified Jesus.
So to make a judgement that a saying in a gospel is not “distinctively Christian” because it does not conform
to Paul’s preaching is to limit one’s view of the landscape of earliest Christianity.
It may even be of interest to note how one scholar sees the relationship between the Gospel of Matthew and
the Didache:
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Respond to this position:
• Mettinger, Tryggve N.D. (2004) [1998]. “The “Dying and Rising God”. A Survey of Research from Frazer to the Present Day”. In Batto, Bernard Frank; Roberts, Kathryn L. (eds.). David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J.J.M. Roberts. Eisenbrauns. pp. 373–386. ISBN 978-1-57506-092-7. “First published in: Svensk exegetisk årsbok 63/1998.” [NOW BOLDED]
• Mettinger, Tryggve N. D. (2001). The Riddle of Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East (Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament, 50). Almqvist & Wiksell International. ISBN 978-91-22-01945-9. [NOW BOLDED]
• Mettinger, Tryggve ap. Hansen, Chris (24 December 2019). “A Brief Note on Richard Carrier’s Inability to Read: Why Aging Unemployed Bloggers Need Bifocals (Guest Post by Chris H.)”. The Amateur Exegete.
• Eliade, Mircea (1972). Zalmoxis: The Vanishing God. University of Chicago Press.
• Marinov, Tchavdar (2015). “Ancient Thrace in the Modern Imagination: Ideological Aspects of the Construction of Thracian Studies in Southeast Europe (Romania, Greece, Bulgaria)”. In Daskalov, Roumen; Vezenkov, Alexander (eds.). Shared Pasts, Disputed Legacies. Entangled Histories of the Balkans, Vol. 3. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-29036-5.
Dr. Carrier, what leads you to conclude that Matthew and Luke only vaguely claim that they’re writing literal, historical events? It seems that by claiming that the events described fulfilled prophecy (as in Matthew) or that the events were investigated so that the reader may know the exact truth (as in Luke), Matthew and Luke are rather straightforwardly claiming to be recording literal, historical events, no?
On a related note, many people cite Mark 9:1 as an embarrassing verse that therefore has a historical core, so how would you interpret it on your view? Do you think it might be a subtle encouragement that the end of the world is near and that some of them might live to see it?
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I think you should read this commentary it’s pretty good https://figshare.mq.edu.au/articles/thesis/Where_is_the_wise_man_Graeco-Roman_education_as_a_background_to_the_divisions_in_1_Corinthians_1-4/19435988/1/files/34533164.pdf
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Could you explain why carrier is wrong on Philo here please it really bothered me this to you on Philo could you respond to this Another example of Tim ignoring refutations already in what he claims to be rebutting, and being a total amateur hack who doesn’t know basic facts. Like that this is how Philo even refers to the Psalms—which is why only hack amateurs ever say this; experts know Philo’s idiom is metaphorical not literal, which is why experts all attribute this as a reference to Zechariah.
Note I debunk the claim that Philo was quoting some other book in OHJ, pp. 203-04. And indeed even his getting the author wrong would only mean he misattributed the passage; it’s not as if this passage is in some text written by some traveling companion of Moses! So O’Neill’s argument doesn’t even make sense. Even were it informed. But alas, it is not…
When Philo says “a certain one of the friends of Moses” he means metaphorically, not literally. Philo frequently uses “friends” non-literally, as in someone attached to x and who likes x, not someone who was a personal companion of x, e.g. when Philo speaks of “friends of the soul,” as in That God Is Immutable 55 [cf. also 143], he means people who are spiritually attached to the idea of the soul and prefer it to the material body, not people who are literally companions of a soul; likewise “friends of impiety and atheism,” in On Drunkenness 78, “friends of frugality,” ibid. 58; similarly in On Sobriety 13; On the Change of Names 39 & 112; Who Is the Heir 60; On Mating with the Preliminary Studies 20 & 62; On Dreams 2.205; On the Migration of Abraham 197; On Flight and Finding 11& 19; etc.).
In Allegorical Interpretation 3.7 we have something similar, a “friend of the doctrine of Heraclitus” (not an actual friend of Heraclitus); and in The Posterity of Cain 91, Philo says when Moses says “ask your elders” he means by “elders” the “friends of right reason,” hence anyone who shares the orthodoxy of Moses, not literally a contemporary but past biblical authors.
Thus when we see the exact same phrase used in On Dreams 2.245, “a certain one of the friends of Moses” (tis tôn hetairôn Môuseôs, same words as tôn Môuseôs hetairôn tinos in our passage), where he means the author of the Psalms, not an actual companion of Moses, we know what he means in our passage as well.
Thus, obviously “friend of Moses” means one of the biblical authors, not a literal companion of Moses. Philo thus means Zechariah, the only place this appears and that aligns with the arguments Philo then deploys. Our passage should thus be translated not as “one of the friends of Moses said” but “one of the appreciators [or lovers or admirers] of Moses said” or “one of those [whose writings are collected with/follow/or are friendly to those of] Moses said.” In other words, “one of the Prophets said.
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hey I have a question could you respond to carriers claim to Tim O’Neill that there’s a Philo did Jesus is mentioned in the text of Philo it really bothered me this question I’m not an expert in filo at all but I know you are a little bit more extra than me in this field could you respond to charismatic claim about Jesus being in the text to Philo I’m not an expert in this field
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respond to this Be aware, the assumed alternative is transformation: the messiah is going to live forever, because he will be alive at the transformation of all flesh, the general resurrection of all the world’s dead (1 Thess. 4:13-17; 1 Cor. 15:50-54). Just like everyone else still alive when that happens, who also will never have died (because death will have been eliminated from existence before they died).
A dying messiah is assumed to be a failed messiah (someone who didn’t bring about the transformation of all flesh, the general resurrection of all the world’s dead). The Christians turn this around by reimagining the death as in fact a success (it solves the problem holding God back by atoning for the world’s sins, per Dan. 9, and operates as a sign that the general resurrection has begun, as now we can share in the model given us by the messiah, per 1 Cor. 15:2-24, who, being resurrected, can now defeat all worldly foes in the final days as well).
What dozens of scholars are pointing out (and I am just summarizing) is that there is abundant triangulating evidence that the Christians weren’t the only ones coming up with this idea. Even the post-Christian data in the Talmud is disconnected entirely from Christianity: explaining the death of Jesus is not present as the inspiration or purpose of adopting the idea; it is adopted completely apart from that, to explain no existing messiah’s death, but in fact to anticipate one who hasn’t even died yet.
This therefore was not unusual for Jews to do. It required no actually dying messiah to think of it. As I and many others point out, it simply requires reading Daniel 9 literally at what it says: an atonement for sin is needed for God to finally make good on his promise to transform the world, so one anointed to effect that atonement must die (and thus, one will, to herald the end soon to come: Dan. 9:24-26). This is how Isaiah 53 comes to be interpreted as messianic (by the authors of Daniel, its reception in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by some later Jewish and Christian exegetes).
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hey your friend McDonald recommended this book on a podcast he claims this is how the early q document probably started Greek epic poems from this scholar https://drive.google.com/file/d/19c6en6bFuiCRQ126MMNhrif-McouxhUu/view?usp=drivesdk
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could you respond to this then close with entire chapters on why Paul’s references to “Brothers of the Lord” are too vague to establish the historicity of Jesus and why Paul’s references to Jesus’ incarnation are even more so. The only Brothers of the Lord Paul clearly describes in his letters are baptized Christians—cultic, not biological brothers. I show in JFOS how every typical pushback against this realization fails on facts or logic—mere rationalizations for denying the obvious, not sound reasons to maintain Paul “must” have meant Jesus’ actual kin (a concept found nowhere in the letters of Paul). Likewise, in his actual Greek, Paul does not clearly say Jesus was descended from David in any terrestrial sense or that he had a biological mother. Again, to aver these things requires ignoring the actual language and context of the pertinent verses and replacing straightforward evidence with a whole slate of ad hoc presumptions entirely recruited from the very Christian faith tradition that tried to erase these facts to begin with. And if you don’t believe me, you really need to read these chapters before you can claim to be so sure. I suspect you won’t have heard many of the facts in them. They change everything. I propose that any Jesus scholar pose a serious question to himself: are you going to maintain your assumptions without ever examining the facts that challenge them, or are you going to actually confront and consider those facts before deciding what to conclude? You should not allow institutional inertia, academic pride, social pressure, or Christian faith to motivate your avoiding the actual evidence and arguments presented for this theory. Instead of reacting as other critics have done and producing rebuttals that don’t even represent the actual evidence and arguments made and thus never respond to them, it is high time scholars did their jobs—take the evidence and arguments seriously and actually respond to them, rather than avoid or misrepresent them. I hope that Jesus from Outer Space will help motivate more scholars to do that
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could you respond to this Taking Trypho’s last point first, Justin argues for several chapters that prophecy predicted Christianity, not just Jesus. So the existence of Christianity itself is evidence Jesus must have been real and not a “false report” based on “no evidence.” He therefore must be historical, not mythical. This repeats the argument he already established in The Setup, creating a chiasmus (miracle-working Jews: rebuttal: miracle-working Christians). In other words, the fact that ancient prophets must be telling the truth because they could perform miracles, means that if Christians today can perform miracles, they too must be telling the truth. This is not a rational argument. But it is Justin’s entire argument. Everything else he argues across the Dialogue is simply “the Scriptures said it, so it must be true.” So he has to ground the repeated premise that the Scriptures and Gospels always tell the truth. But instead of doing that in anything resembling a rational way (like proving events they reported or predicted did historically happen), he proves it in this whackadoodle way: by insisting that if Christians can perform miracles and are in other ways “powerfully affected by the Gospel, this proves everything the Gospel says is true.
Here Justin is clearly most impressed by the fact that Christians can “expel demons.” He argues that this proves Jesus is real. Otherwise, why would demons respond to invoking his name-and indeed not just his name, but Justin’s specific historicist creed-if it wasn’t true? For example, Justin says invoking not just any jesus works, but only the one “crucified by Pilate” (§30 and §85). His point is clearly, “How can that be, if Jesus wasn’t actually crucified by Pilate?” That that specific thing needed to be true in Justin’s sect is made clear by the letters of Ignatius, who is very anxious about Christians denying it. Of course we know this is a lunatic argument. “Jesus must have been crucified by Pilate because we can expel demons when we mention it” is bonkers. But it is what Justin is arguing. And more importantly, it is his only argument. Justin presents no other defense against Trypho’s charge that the Gospels are made up.
Trypho’s “groundless report” accusation thus dispatched (Step One), Justin moves up the list to Trypho’s “manifest to all” accusation (Step Two). To dispatch that, Justin argues at length that that requirement will be met at the Second Coming; which is also proved sure to happen by, again, “The Scriptures,” and, again, present Christian miracle-working: §35, “by the mighty deeds even now wrought through His name, by the words He taught, by the prophecies announced concerning Him.” Likewise §39, “daily some [of the Jews] are becoming disciples in the name of Christ, and quitting the path of error, who are also receiving gifts, each as he is worthy, illumined through the name of this Christ: for one receives the spirit of understanding, another of counsel, another of strength, another of healing, another of foreknowledge, another of teaching, and another of the fear of God”; and §49, “You can perceive that the concealed power of God was in Christ the Crucified, before whom demons, and all the principalities and powers of the earth, [now] tremble.” So he keeps leaning on these same two arguments: the Gospels are historically reliable because ancient Scripture says so and Christians today are receiving miraculous gifts. Then Justin moves up Trypho’s list again, now to the “Elijah” accusation, by arguing that John the Baptist already served that role (Step Three). This occupies §49-51 of the Dialogue, bracketed by a setup (§48) and outro (§52-55).
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Whatever arguments Justin Martyr makes is not what we use for historicity anyway so that is just the usual straw man arguments Carrier makes.
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Hey could you respond to this Allen Lataster notes that Ehrman also agrees the only other evidence we have, Christian devotional texts, “are terrible sources,” as Lataster puts it, because “they are not contemporaneous, they are not from eyewitnesses,” and “they are biased, full of contradictions, fabrications, and implausible claims.” Ehrman does admit to all of this, even if not using exactly those words; as must every honest historian. And they ought to further admit, in consequence of that, that this is a problem.
Lataster’s point after that is that the historicity of Jesus is really only defended today on the back of purely hypothetical sources and interpretations. Not actual evidence; imaginary evidence. Ehrman says we can trust the Gospels report true facts about Jesus because “Q” and “M” and “L” really existed, and we can assume “they are reliable…for some reason never explained. But we don’t even have any evidence those sources did exist; much less were recording any history at all, rather than just myth and legend, fiction about a cult’s magnificent, often celestial founder, no different than fiction about Osiris, Romulus, Hercules, Moses.
“Apart from his use of hypothetical sources,” Lataster goes on to point out, “Ehrman highlights two key points that apparently make Jesus’ existence a sure bet” The first of which “is Paul’s relationships with Peter and James, who surely knew a historical Jesus.” But Paul never says they knew a historical Jesus. Other than in the same sense he did: as a celestial, revelatory being, encountered only in visions. To the contrary, Paul seems very clearly to say that that is the only way they knew him (Romans 16:25-26; Romans 10:13-14; 1 Corinthians 15:3-8; 1 Corinthians 9:1; Galatians 1:11-17). Even regarding James, Ehrman has to circularly presume his hypothesis is true in order to use Paul’s mention of James as evidence for his hypothesis (likewise people Paul never says he met nor ever even says were people). All as Lataster points out, Ehrman is fabricating evidence not in existence, and using that fabricated evidence to defend the historicity of Jesus. Worse, he is fabricating that evidence contrary to that actual contemporary eyewitness evidence, and instead basing his contrary fabrication on later myths about Jesus-circularly presuming myth to be history, in order to argue that myth is history. This is what’s fundamentally wrong with almost the entirety of Jesus studies today.
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//they are not contemporaneous///
He may have a point if we only had the gospels but we don’t. Paul’s letters are contemporaneous. Paul knew Jesus’ brother and some from his movement. He actually met these people. Also I had another blog refuting Lataster. Tell Lataster to read it and weep.
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hello this is the second part I wanted you to respond to The “second” point Lataster rightly notes Ehrman leans on “is that Jews would apparently never invent a suffering Messiah.” But, Lataster observes, that is more fabricated evidence, again contrary to what evidence there actually is. There is in fact no evidence no Jews would ever conceive of such a thing- particularly counter-cultural Jews like the Christians, preaching a message of pacifist repentance rather than military rebellion. In actual fact, Judaism was at that very time extremely diverse (not absolutist, non-innovative, or obsessively orthodox); and we have many examples of Jews conceiving of suffering. even dying, messiahs, martyrs, or cultural heroes. The Christian concept is thus very conceivable, not inconceivable. In contrast with Ehrman’s baseless assertion, we have actual evidence of the point (see On the Historicity of Jesus, Chs. 4 & 5, Elements 2, 5-7, 16-18, 22-29, and 43; along with discussion of the Nickelsburg Jewish mythotype pp. 430-32; see also my previous discussions of Ehrman’s particular version of this fallacy here, here, and here).
The irony is that Ehrman actually knows this second pillar of his is fallacious because he himself explains why we should dismiss it (unaware of the fact that he is contradicting himself): “How would we know” any particular thing “about ‘every’ early Christian, unless all of them left us writings and told us everything they knew and did?” (DJE, p. 193). Replace “early Christian” with “early first century Jew” and his own argument here, refutes his own argument there. If Ehrman revised his argument to one of prior probability-instead of saying, irrationally and uninformedly, that “no” Jew thought a certain way, saying rather that it’s “unlikely” any Jew thought that way given what we do know-he is then refuted by all the evidence, which entirely supports the contrary conclusion: the established facts of Jewish diversity. creativity, and acceptance of slain and suffering heroes, martyrs, and messiahs, and the counter- cultural and anti-militarist-hence anti-orthodox-stance of the Christian sect. None of which supports, but rather contradicts, his position. Lataster makes the same point about the only other expert’s monograph defending historicity in the last hundred years or so, the one by the late Maurice Casey-also, like Ehrman’s pop market attempt. not peer reviewed, and littered with errors. Lataster rightly notes Casey’s screed is filled with “many rudimentary errors and unscholarly comments (such as an unnecessary remark about one discussant’s sexuality)” and ultimately “has nothing substantial to add to the debate.” It, too, defends historicity with imaginary rather than actual evidence (with made up stories about non-existent sources, non- existent authors, and non-existent events); and then adds an elaborate layer of argument ad hominem in place of any kind of discernible logic. Again ask yourself: Why is this the only way to defend the historicity of Jesus?
When we sweep away all imaginary and hypothetical evidence and draw conclusions solely from actual evidence (and stop using fallacious, self-refuting arguments), we end up with at least one plausible alternative (as a dozen experts now agree): when Paul appears to say the only way anyone ever met Jesus is in visions, how it appears is how it was. That is in fact the simplest explanation of the evident facts. We can retool our hypothesis of historicity, add a bunch of ad hoc excuses for why Paul would only ever, and repeatedly, talk that way and no other, despite Jesus having recently been a renowned executed criminal who hand-picked his Disciples in life. And with that newly elaborate theory we can get the evidence in Paul at least to fit our new hypothesis. But that it fits does not make it the more probable. It rather only leaves us with at best a 50/50 chance it is what it seems, or it is what you have elaborately now proposed. So what evidence do you have that your newly elaborated theory is correct? You can’t circularly appeal to your hypothesis
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you respond to the second thing here
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Only actual people resurrect to second temple Jews, so mythicism is dead really. Paul thinks Jesus resurrected – QED. The hypotheses of historicity has just gone up to 100/0, not 33/67 as Carrier claims. About time you give up the debate and move onto real history.
Here’s real history in my latest paper/ like who Jesus actually was:
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