Talk:Historical Jesus
From SkepticWiki
This is davefoc. I would like to contribute to this page. I have an article in my head that I would like to use for this section, but I don't want to get in the way of somebody else that was working on it.
- go ahead.Geni 09:44, 1 November 2005 (GMT)
Hello Geni, I put it in the introductory section of what I had in mind. If you disagree with the basic approach please feel free to wipe it out.
If you like the basic approach I will try to flesh out a few of the sections.
This is the first time I have done anything like this. Please understand that my ego is not going to be harmed by whatever you say or do with regards to this. Just make comments or edits that you feel are correct.
- It's fine.Geni 20:29, 6 November 2005 (GMT)
Hmm, I had an article that I was working on with a very different outline. I'll try to merge it in with what's there, but some things are going to get overwritten. In particular, the approach is to point out why the case for Jesus' nonexistence is bunk, and why even secular scholars have concluded this. I'll post the incomplete article shortly, after I've cleaned it up a bit. I do want to keep the topics " Discussion of why many aspect of Jesus life describe in the Gospels probably didn't happen" and "Discussion of internal and historical inconsistencies in the New Testament" --J. J. Ramsey 00:06, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
Ok, I added my part. Sorry for overwriting so much, davefoc. One thing I do want to make clear. There is too much garbage already that is written about Jesus by so-called skeptics, and I think it's about time that the trend was reversed. This article should be guided by the mainstream scholarship in the field, and kept strictly crank-free (or at least as much as that is possible on a wiki).
I would be interested in your sources on the story of Jesus being based on a composite of several historical personages. --J. J. Ramsey 00:51, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
Contents |
[edit] Puzzled by the focus
I thought that the object of this article was to lay out the evidences for historical person Jesus of Nazareth. Instead it appears to be a set of appeals to authority and popularity as to why the "mythicists" are wrong.
For example:
- ...However, the so-called mythicist position is an extreme minority amongst New Testament scholars and historians, even those who do not regard the New Testament as reliable, let alone infallible.
is an appeal to popularity
The way the article is constructed is here:
- The purpose of the section Existence of Jesus of Nazareth is twofold. First, it is to explain the problems with the mythicists' arguments. Second, it is to explain why it is far more probable that a historical Jesus existed, even if he bore little resemblance to the Christ of many Christians' faith.
To my mind, it would be more straightforward to present all of the evidence of Jesus as existing in history and then go through the claims of the "mythicists" having laid that foundation.
I know this article is at an early stage, but before you go much further, could you consider changing the focus? At the risk of being pedantic, it is not for "mythicists" to prove the negative but for the authors to prove the positive case for the historicity of this person.
--Diamond 01:19, November 7, 2005 (GMT)
Ramsey, No apologies needed for overwriting my stuff. I defer completely to your apparent greater knowledge of the subject.
I would like to explain a little bit about where I was coming from (but I am not arguing for a return to what I wrote, I think I like your approach better): I have taken part in several discussions over at JREF on the existence of Jesus. One of the arguments that has been made is that an historical jesus did not exist because the most significant elements of the story are false. This struck me as a semantic argument that depended on how the term "historical jesus" was defined. So I set out to define the major variations on the way I had seen the term used before discussing the nature of the life of an historical jesus.
One source for the composite Jesus theory is this: http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html The article shows up in several places on the web. I think, even if this non-main stream theory of the nature of Jesus is rejected, it is very likely that there are aspects of the Gospel Jesus stories that are derived from old testament characters. So some form of compositing in the creation of the Jesus stories is probably going on.
I communicated a bit with the author of what I thought was the best historical Jesus site and his view about the existence of Jesus was essentially consistant with your own. I think the most significant issue for him was the highly likely existance of Paul and the fact that he probably did write at least some of the new testament credited to him. Capel Dodger, a poster over at JREF with an apparent detailed knowledge of the issue, also seems to agree with your view here. This is my way of saying that I think that based on the thoughts of people I respect on this issue that your basic premise about the nature of Jesus is correct.
--Davefoc 06:22, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
Note I edited the comments below. I think I have a better idea of your structure now and some of my comments were wrong. Ramsey, I have spent some time now going over your article, especially in light of diamond's comments. I wonder whether this is a good place for a detailed discussion of Josephus. I think it might be better to list him together with a few of the other people commonly given as extra biblical sources and summarize the evidentiary value of these sources. I think you might just link to somebody else's esoteric discussion of Josephus for the purposes of this article. I am not as convinced as you are that there is a good consensus amongst scholars that the Josephus Jesus comments weren't completely fabricated. My reading suggests a solid consensus that some of them were probably fabricated and some consunsus that some of them might be real.
I think one thing that might answer Diamond's objections a bit is to bring the Case for a historical Jesus section towards the top. I think I would put a section that provides evidence that many of the biblical Jesus stories are probably made up entirely beneath that section. This might be a good place to talk about the likely dates that Gospels were written and the lack of consistency between John and the other Gospels.
I'm not sure what you mean by "My reading suggests a solid consensus that some of them were probably fabricated and some consunsus that some of them might be real." If you mean that some of the comments within the Testimonium Flavianum were probably fabricated and some weren't, well, that's what the article says already. If you mean that there isn't a strong consensus in favor of partial authenticity, you are sort of right. The majority seem to hold to partial authenticity, with a minority holding to the Testamonium being inauthentic and almost no one holding to complete authenticity. I can rejigger the section to be more clear about that.
Also, the section for discussing the made-up nature of many Gospel stories is already below the "Case for a historical Jesus" section. I see no reason why you can't jump in and add the stuff there about lack of consistency between John and the other Gospels, etc. There may be some overlap with the section on "Against-the-grain material in the New Testament"; for example, a discussion on the embarassing nature of Mark 6:1-6 will likely include a discussion of how Luke covers up the embarassment in his grossly embellished parallel account in Luke 4:16-30. (Interestingly enough, the existence of Nazareth factors into the problems with the Lukan account; the geography of ancient Nazareth lacks the cliff off of which the Nazarenes supposedly tried to hurl Jesus (Luke 4:29). This problem could hardly be pointed out if Nazareth didn't exist!) Of course, there's no reason why there can't be cross-references between the two sections if necessary. --J. J. Ramsey 12:52, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
[edit] Split into two articles?
It occurred to me that the best solution might be to split off the topic of the existence of Jesus of Nazareth into a separate article, since it is a hot-button topic of its own. The current Historical Jesus article can then focus more on historical problems with the Gospels themselves and on how the real Jesus of history might be reconstructed. That way, the discussions that really don't have a a whole lot to do with Jesus per se, such as the myths of various Mesopotamian and Mediterranean gods, don't clutter up the Historical Jesus topic. What do you think?
--J. J. Ramsey 13:15, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
- Yes. Since there are several brands of mystical jesus we will probably end up with multiple articles.13:38, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
Ok, the split has now been made. --J. J. Ramsey 14:11, 7 November 2005 (GMT)
[edit] Change the title?
As far as I can tell, the article is no longer about the "Historical Jesus" but really about "The internal reliability of the Gospels".--Diamond
The two topics are rather thoroughly intertwined, since they deal with what is and is not historical material about Jesus.
BTW, I don't know if we could change the title, even if we wanted to.
--J. J. Ramsey 01:31, 25 November 2005 (GMT)
- Admins can. It's current;y swtiched off for editors since I don't want to have to deal with page move vandalism.Geni 16:56, 27 November 2005 (GMT)
[edit] Shifted material back to the Existence Of Jesus page
The section Possibly authentic material about Jesus in the New Testament has been removed, since its content is now part of the Existence Of Jesus article. In its place is the section What the real historical Jesus may have been like, in which should probably go the various reconstructions of Jesus' activities by Crossan, E. P. Sanders, etc. --J. J. Ramsey 06:13, 23 December 2005 (GMT)
[edit] Shifted material to new Biblical Errors page
I created a new Biblical Errors page, which seems like a better fit for the content that was in the Historical Jesus article.
