Edward Feser has a blog post up that is highly relevant to much of the debate that takes place here at The Skeptical Zone between theists and non-theists.
Lazy shouts of “unfalisfiability!” against theological claims just ignore all this complexity — the distinctions that have to be drawn between empirical claims on the one hand and claims of mathematics, logic, and metaphysics on the other; between extremely general empirical claims and more specific ones; between philosophy of nature (which studies the philosophical presuppositions of natural science) and natural science itself; and between the testing of a thesis and the testing of the auxiliary assumptions we generally take for granted but conjoin with the thesis when drawing predictions from it.
So, falsificationism is a rather feeble instrument to wield against theology. And in fact, atheist philosophers have known this for decades, even if New Atheist combox commandos are still catching up.
Is the world a better place because of the crusades?
We really cannot guess whether the world would be a better place if X didn’t happen. Because maybe then Y would happen which changed everything. We are stuck with the history that we have, not the possible history that we might try to imagine.
It means exactly what it says. There is no contemporary evidence that any person fitting the description of Jesus actually existed. That doesn’t mean he didn’t, but it certainly calls into question how much could be known about him if he did.
Have you read the MacLeans article? Have you ever played telephone? For decades or longer?
Paul is contemporary with Jesus as are the apostles that Paul interacted with . So there is contemporary evidence unless you mean something like photographic evidence. No historian worth his salt would demand such a thing.
You don’t call into question how much could be known for all the other historical figures and events who don’t meet your odd criteria. Why the selective hyper skepticism?
peace
I’m quite familiar with the old telephone game gambit.
Paul wrote barely 20 years after the events in question to churches established even before that by eyewitnesses to Jesus who were still in the picture and still active in these communities. He conferred often with the other eyewitnesses and was constantly in contact with folks who would know details.
There is no “decades” and no telephone game.
Take the passage from 1st Corinthians for example. It was written in the mid 50s and it is near identical to what is found in Luke that according to skeptical scholars was written in 80-130 A.D.
That alone should settle the matter.
I don’t know about you but I can remember even some minor things that happened 20 years ago life changing events from that time period are pretty settled in my mind.
peace
I think that was one of Ehrman’s best books, ever!
He makes a very convincing case that Jesus himself had to have had a completely different opinion of himself than later ascribed to him by orthodoxy.
I’m going to have to stop you right there and ask for some evidence for that claim.
He does this despite believing that we can know next to nothing about what Jesus said thought or did.
I find this sort of blatantly contradictory thought in skeptics to be amusing.
That any one would consider it to be “very convincing” tells me a lot about what passes for evidence with these folks
peace
I think you are being more than a little disingenuous on more than a couple of counts:
We are discussing 1st Corinthians it universally accepted as authentically Pauline by serious scholarship. Red hearings aside,
No red herrings? …show me a copy of 1st Corinthians written in Paul’s (or his scribe’s) own hand writing please. Bowdlerization of Paul’s authentic letters did occur in latter centuries. I trust you do not deny that.
That’s OK, let’s proceed that the relevant verse in Corinthians I is legit. Apostolic authority vs Pauline authority? Methinks the two did not always coincide. OK, let’s move on:
Paul is emphasizing the somber part of the meal to balance the practice of the believers in Corinth who were getting a little rowdy.
Rowdy communion service, you suggest?
Hmmm 1 Corinthians 5
Lord’s supper?
Hmmm again… 1 Corinthians 11:17-22
Clearly the Agape you suggest of Paul was supposed to be more than some communal pot-luck but rather a feast to be shared by all not at all dissimilar to what I suggested of the relevant quote in the Didache regarding the Lord’s Supper. Outside sources confirm that line of contention, remembering all the while there existed great diversity in belief and practice in the earliest Christian communities.
… and while we are at it, very similar to Mithraic feasts, apparently.
You are correct, the agape is an interesting topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agape_feast
Yes – Paul came up (on his own initiative, 1 Corinthians 11:23) with a replacement to the more conventional brachah rishonah mentioned earlier. I always considered Paul a bellicose and angry hater of Judaism with a particularly nasty axe to grind.
Barrie Wilson said it better than I.
http://www.barriewilson.com/hjbc.html
(another great book btw)
Of course you are it’s your MO. You can’t be bothered to actually research this stuff for yourself. It’s not secret It’s the scholarly consensuses
What sort of evidence would you like? Do you want dates for Paul’s writings? Do you want the make up of the early Christian community?
Be specific please. I can’t spoon feed you if I don’t know what you want
peace
One reply at a time… I will get to this one as well…
I have no idea who my maternal great-grandfather was. I’m sure he existed but no record remains that would enable me to find out anything about him. It’s a simple fact that records of ordinary people in the first century are practically non-existent.
More hyper skepticism. Now you demand the autograph. How would you even know if a particular manuscript was in his hand or not?
Of course you provide no evidence for this belief
quote:
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit—that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises.
(Rom 9:1-4)
end quote:
That doesn’t sound like a hater with an axe to grind to me.
But if you could decide that we can’t know much at all about Jesus except he couldn’t possibly think he was divine I guess anything is possible.
peace
Evidence that “Paul wrote barely 20 years after the events in question to churches established even before that by eyewitnesses to Jesus who were still in the picture and still active in these communities.” as you claimed. Especially that eyewitnesses bit, which is exactly what there is no evidence for.
I already did earlier
Plutarch notes Cilician pirates were practicing Mithraic rites by 67 B.C. Many authorities confirm that Paul’s hometown of Tarsus was a major centre of Mithraic practice until Paul’s Christos eventually prevailed.
I also provided an easy to read authoritative reference
http://www.mysterium.com/sciam.html
So yes – the Mithraic cult predated Christianity and in particular predated Christianity in Paul’s own city of Tarsus.
Pax tecum
As a child my grandmother told me lots of stories about my great-grandfather. He was a character.
I can tell you lots about him confidently even though he died 40 years before I was born. This is more time than separates the events of Jesus life and the Gospels even if you accept the skeptical dating.
I would agree but ask why that is at all relevant to the life of Jesus.
peace
uhmmm… I think there is more evidence for Julius Caesar’s historicity (does that word even exist?) than Jesus’.
That said – you are correct that the Earl Doherty’s “Chistos as nothing more than Myth and only Myth” is equivalent to “Intelligent Design” in more objective circles.
Again (and I repeat myself) Bart Ehrman really did manage to slay the silly shibboleth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Did_Jesus_Exist%3F_(Ehrman)
You argue that early Christian rites were fluid and diverse despite ample written communication between churches describing them yet you are confident that you know what the early “Mithraic rites” were even though we have no description of them at all.
Again with the selective hyper skepticism.
It’s so predictable
peace
1) Just to maintain the same standard of proof that you demand of others. Do you have a copy of the Scientific American from 1989 that supposedly contained this article?
2) Do you honestly think that nothing of importance has been learned about this stuff since 1989
peace
Uhmmm… there is actually a telestial version of the “telephone game” that sounds worse than your own above suggested dismissal of the “telephone game”.
Paul is asking believers (on faith) to take his word for it; that he (Paul) managed some sort of personal communication with Christ; and as a result everyone needs to accept that his contrary interpretation is in fact authoritative; despite what Peter, James and any other real eye-witness may have to say on the matter.
again I say HMMMMMM
Hi Patrick,
I have to side with fifthmonarchyman on this one…
Please refer to the links I provided earlier on the
1 – Incident at Antioch
2 – The Council of Jeruslaem
3 – Bart Ehrman’s book Did Jesus exist
Paul is at least as trustworthy as Muhammad or Joseph Smith.
Because there is nothing that confirms the later circumstantial claims about details of Jesus’ life. Nothing to prove he didn’t exist and nothing to prove he did exist.
quote:
Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.
(1Co 15:11)
and
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
(Gal 2:1-2)
end quote:
This is getting old.
Is there any conspiracy theory you won’t buy into?
Words like “prove” are just silly when discussing history. I can’t prove that anything exists outside my own mind. I might be living in the Matrix
It’s been my experience that normal rational people don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on stuff like that. It’s only those who are desperate to deny the obvious.
Say what again?!
You clearly are making second-hand suppositions of what Bart Ehrman said and have completely misrepresented him! Your comment clearly betrays you have not read any of Ehrman’s books!
In the tradition of Albert Schweitzer, Ehrman is emphatically clear that scholars can in fact penetrate centuries of accumulated orthodox patina and definitively determine what Christ really said and what he really meant despite centuries of bowdlerization.
I urge you to ready these two books:
http://tinyurl.com/hk57clb
http://tinyurl.com/jtfm7gh
I agree with you that it is a waste of time poring over fragmentary and possibly amended texts for clear answers on whether the Christian Jesus had a basis in a real-life person or persons.
I need to respectfully disagree.
John Dominic Crossan slayed that particular shibboleth.
Great minds think alike then. 😉
Instead what you should do is ask yourself if a person with the ability to rise from the dead would have the power to preserve any records of his life that he chose to.
The answer is obvious
peace
We have genealogies of ordinary people?
Because that was the claim. we don’t have genealogies.
I hope you are not deliberately misconstruing my words. You misunderstand me altogether!
I already mentioned that scholars can in fact penetrate centuries of accumulated orthodox patina and definitively determine what Christ really said and what he really meant despite centuries of bowdlerization.
You yourself referred earlier to “authentic” vs “non-authentic” Pauline letters. Presumably, scholars can narrow down what Paul really said and what he really did not say. I explicitly said so in the post you are twisting out of context.
That all said – I am convinced that the “authentic” Paul really made a mess of things and got completely wrong the real intent of that hapless itinerant Galilean chap who got on the wrong side of the Roman constabulary.
I see he’s a prodigious writer, Tom. But he’s still working with little or no primary material. Could you give an example of something that looks like convincing evidence to you confirming some element of the Christian Jesus?
First Ehrman now Crossan.
My what a one sided approach to the topic you apparently employ. Is it any wonder you come to the conclusions you do.
I suggest a little balance might be in order
why not start here?
peace
Meanwhile we have contemporary evidence for the existence of Harry Potter.
And well attested evidence for the veracity of Joseph Smith’s golden tablets.
This “reasoning” is absolutely horrendous.
-20 skeptical points.
So if a something sounds orthodox it is “definitely” a later corruption.
How would you know that is the case?
you might want to check this out.
quote:
I would maintain, however, that, if the history of textual transmission is as Ehrman maintains it is, then it is really rather unreasonable of him to be so certain that his reconstruction of the earliest forms of the text are correct.
end quote:
from here
http://evangelicaltextualcriticism.blogspot.com/2005/12/review-of-bart-ehrman-misquoting-jesus_31.html
peace
Well, Christianity claims you can prove it to yourself. 🙂
But really, now it’s about proof? Shifting goalposts.
Not for me. I’m all for live-and-let-live. Just sayin’ that the argument over whether there’s any real evidence remaining to establish whether a historical Jesus figure existed isn’t going to change many minds. If I were presented with irrefutable documentary evidence of such a figure, it wouldn’t, I imagine, make me any more likely to consider some version of Christianity as having more validity.
I rather enjoy Tom’s references to Ehrman and Crossan. Puts paid to the claims that it’s just right-wing Christian fundamentalists who believe Jesus actually existed.
Wasn’t it Flint who said some such thing. Myther Flint. Mysteriously absent Flint.
Uhmmm – now you are no longer disingenuous but have appeared to cross the line into intellectual dishonesty! Maybe I need to grant you the benefit of a doubt; perhaps you are very unfamiliar with Paul’s writings.
First of all, I stated at the outset I am a rank amateur and to support my claim I cited the writing of Barrie Wilson.
Your abridged quotation of Paul is somewhat eyebrow raising given the condescending and angry tone Paul adopts immediately following your quotation, where according to Paul; God is mightily pissed off with Israel who shall receive their comeuppance (except for some prophetically referred to “remnant”).
I note that you failed to mention 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16
For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of God’s churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus: You suffered from your own people the same things those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. In this way they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last.
… which surely confirms my contradiction of your Pollyanna interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans.
FTR – both epistles are considered “authentic” Pauline by scholars.
There’s more… but that suffices. Right now, I am mightily pissed-off!
My library on the historical Jesus is otherwise occupied holding up tables and chairs else I’d post a picture. 😉
Damn it! Are you making this stuff up on your own?
Before the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, scholars already had a pretty good idea (in broad strokes) of what Christian Gnosticism was all about by careful analysis of secondary sources.
Now given Mithraism was a secret rite and we have no written record of Mithraic catechism (except possibly for one disputed fragmented papyrus); scholars similarly need to deduce what Mithraism was all about no differently than Gnosticism before.
Guess what – in broad strokes the scholars were right about Gnosticism although Nag Hammadi provided far more detail
Guess what – current understanding (in broad strokes) of Mithraism is no different. Meanwhile, I still stand by my earlier admiring citation of Elaine Pagels’ analysis of “diabolical mimicry” despite a plethora of specious and embarrassed apologetics rife on the blogosphere.
answered
Well Joseph Smith for sure. An excellent comparison!
We finally agree!!!
You realize of course – those quotes were completely irrelevant.
Goddamit – just read Ehrman’s book
Please!
Not so…
Scholars can glean much with proper forensic methodology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_criticism
again, and I repeat: please check out Bart Ehrman’s book(s)
I am repeating myself. Please refer to my earlier answers I provided to Patrick.
OK – that does it!
This post is particularly galling:
You are on “IGNORE!”
Ask the moderator to alert me if and when you actually read Ehrman or Crossan firsthand and no longer spread specious second-hand libel.
OK – now that was funny!
Completely wrong-headed, but still funny.