I got my copy of Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth yesterday and I'm enjoying it a lot. I am happy to say that the article Bart Ehrman wrote for the Huffington Post two weeks ago does not fairly reflect the arguments in the book. Although he is convinced that Jesus was a historical person, the book does not paint all doubters with nearly as broad a brush as the article. More importantly, while the article made it sound like historians have a lot more evidence for the existence of Jesus than they really do, I think the book fairly describes the evidence and arguments upon which Ehrman at least is actually relying.
One of the things I have admired most about Ehrman's books is the way that he lays out the evidence upon which he bases his conclusions. Even if you disagree with those conclusions, you come away with a good overview of the main points of contention and the arguments that each side is making. After reading Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, I found that I was able to follow debates between scholars of textual criticisms and ask reasonably intelligent questions. I think that anyone who reads Did Jesus Exist? will get similar insights into the historicist/mythicist debates.
Despite my appreciation of the book and Ehrman, I don't think it is going to be enough to push me off the fence of historical Jesus agnosticism. While Ehrman is reasonably respectful of Robert Price, G.A. Wells, and Richard Carrier, he does make a lot of mythicism look very foolish. My problem is with his positive arguments for Jesus' existence. They seem to me to rely far too much on hypothetical reconstructions of the sources behind the gospels using techniques which scholars invented for the specific purpose of reconstructing the sources behind the gospels. The evidence still seems awfully speculative and conjectural and the arguments somewhat circular.
Ehrman honestly acknowledges that we do not have the kind of sources for Jesus that historians would like to have and he points out correctly that the absence of these sources doesn't disprove Jesus' existence because we wouldn't reasonably expect to have such sources for a person of Jesus' social status. The upshot of this according to Ehrman is that historians need to find other ways of establishing Jesus' existence. To me, however, the upshot of not having the kind of sources historians like and not expecting to have them is that we probably shouldn't expect to have a great deal of certainty about the question. If there is a problem with the application of techniques that are generally accepted as reliable when considering historical questions, how much confidence can we have in techniques that are developed specifically for determining the historicity of stories about Jesus?
There are many mythicists who have been quick to accuse Ehrman of selling out or knuckling under to religious orthodoxy, but I don't see any reason to question his integrity. I don't think that his conclusions are driven by a vested interest in the existence of a historical Jesus. I do think, however, that he may be said to have a vested interest in the methodology of New Testament studies and I think he may be overestimating the degree of certainty that can be achieved by the application of those techniques. I hope to look at some of those techniques in upcoming posts.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
HJ Agnosticism (19): A Very Silly Claim
The blogosphere is buzzing over Bart Ehrman's new book, Did Jesus Exist?: The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. Historicists are crowing and mythicists range from disappointed to outraged. Unfortunately, my copy hasn't arrived yet so my ability to comment on Ehrman's arguments is limited. From what I have seen, however, I doubt that Ehrman will push me off the fence of historical Jesus agnosticism.
There is one claim that I see repeatedly in comment threads that I can address though. It goes like this: "There is much more evidence Jesus existed than just about any other historical character from that period." I hope that Ehrman doesn't make this claim in his book because it is profoundly silly.
Consider for a moment the kinds of people that you would typically find discussed in a book about the history of ancient Rome. There would be emperors and kings and generals and senators. There would be people whose activities had a widespread impact on prominent and literate people of their day. They would be people who were well known to prominent and literate people of their day. These are certainly not the only people who lived in ancient Rome, but they are the kinds of people who leave a mark in the historical record. You are far less likely to find discussions of particular slaves or peasants unless it is someone like Spartacus who attracted the attention of the prominent and literate people of his day by leading a rebellion.
The kind of people you are least likely to find discussed are people who passed their lives unnoticed by anyone outside a relatively small group of illiterate peasants. There can be no doubt that many such people existed, but they tend not to have left individual or unique marks in the historical record. When it comes to such people, we tend to be limited in our knowledge to the general conditions under which they lived. We tend to be ignorant of the specific things that particular people said and did. That's the problem with our evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus. To the extent that historians think he existed, they think that he hung out with a group of illiterate peasants. To the extent that he attracted any attention during his life from anyone in a position of prominence, he was just another troublemaker put to death by the Roman Empire.
When Jesus first enters the historical record, it is because--to put it crudely--his ghost appeared to someone. The man who first puts Jesus in the record didn't know him, didn't say where or when he lived or died, and said little to nothing about what he said or did during his life. Paul's sole concern was with the theological significance of supernatural events that occurred to Jesus after his death. I can't think of anyone else who made that kind of initial mark in the historical record about whose existence I would be confident
Historicists like to point out that the earliest extant writings about Jesus were composed nearer to the time he lived than those for other people about whose existence we are confident. While its true that the earliest biographies that we have for Alexander the Great were written hundreds of years after his death, their authors tell us that the got their information from biographies that were written by Alexander's contemporaries. Where does our earliest extant source for Jesus say that he got his information? Divine revelation. Where do the subsequent sources tell us they got their information? They don't say.
Does any of this provide proof that Jesus didn't exist? Of course not. But it should be enough to deter those who believe he did from making glib claims about how much more convincing the evidence is than for others of that time.
There is one claim that I see repeatedly in comment threads that I can address though. It goes like this: "There is much more evidence Jesus existed than just about any other historical character from that period." I hope that Ehrman doesn't make this claim in his book because it is profoundly silly.
Consider for a moment the kinds of people that you would typically find discussed in a book about the history of ancient Rome. There would be emperors and kings and generals and senators. There would be people whose activities had a widespread impact on prominent and literate people of their day. They would be people who were well known to prominent and literate people of their day. These are certainly not the only people who lived in ancient Rome, but they are the kinds of people who leave a mark in the historical record. You are far less likely to find discussions of particular slaves or peasants unless it is someone like Spartacus who attracted the attention of the prominent and literate people of his day by leading a rebellion.
The kind of people you are least likely to find discussed are people who passed their lives unnoticed by anyone outside a relatively small group of illiterate peasants. There can be no doubt that many such people existed, but they tend not to have left individual or unique marks in the historical record. When it comes to such people, we tend to be limited in our knowledge to the general conditions under which they lived. We tend to be ignorant of the specific things that particular people said and did. That's the problem with our evidence for the existence of a historical Jesus. To the extent that historians think he existed, they think that he hung out with a group of illiterate peasants. To the extent that he attracted any attention during his life from anyone in a position of prominence, he was just another troublemaker put to death by the Roman Empire.
When Jesus first enters the historical record, it is because--to put it crudely--his ghost appeared to someone. The man who first puts Jesus in the record didn't know him, didn't say where or when he lived or died, and said little to nothing about what he said or did during his life. Paul's sole concern was with the theological significance of supernatural events that occurred to Jesus after his death. I can't think of anyone else who made that kind of initial mark in the historical record about whose existence I would be confident
Historicists like to point out that the earliest extant writings about Jesus were composed nearer to the time he lived than those for other people about whose existence we are confident. While its true that the earliest biographies that we have for Alexander the Great were written hundreds of years after his death, their authors tell us that the got their information from biographies that were written by Alexander's contemporaries. Where does our earliest extant source for Jesus say that he got his information? Divine revelation. Where do the subsequent sources tell us they got their information? They don't say.
Does any of this provide proof that Jesus didn't exist? Of course not. But it should be enough to deter those who believe he did from making glib claims about how much more convincing the evidence is than for others of that time.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Why I Argue about the Bible
I would probably argue with people who believe in leprechauns too if they showed up at the local school board meeting to demand that the high school economics class include a discussion of rainbows and pots of gold.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Why I am Agnostic About HJ (18) An Analogy
Consider the following scenario:
A man with a charismatic and dynamic personality claims to be a prophet and claims to have had an encounter with a heavenly being who reveals previously unknown spiritual truths. The man claims that the heavenly being confirmed the revelation tangibly and physically. Some people are persuaded that the man is telling the truth while others think he is a crackpot. Even for skeptics it is hard to be certain whether he is a deluded lunatic, a pathological liar, or a charlatan.
The prophet claims that the heavenly being had once been a flesh and blood man who walked the earth and stories are invented about the man's activities. However, the initial focus of the earliest believers is on the new spiritual truths that have been revealed and the way in which these truths fulfill the holy writings that are already widely accepted in the culture. Some of the early believers also claim to have had physical and tangible experiences that corroborate the prophet's claims.
As time goes by, substantial numbers of people are converted to the new beliefs without the slightest bit of evidence to confirm the appearance of the heavenly being, the physical corroboration of the revelation, or the historicity of the stories about the heavenly being's activities when he walked the earth. All they have to rely on is the claims of the prophet and his earliest followers.
Many people in the surrounding community think that the prophet is a charlatan and that his claims are utter hogwash. These people try to persuade the believers of the foolishness of the prophet's claims. Some are convinced and fall away, but those who remain become even more fervent in their beliefs. The prophet tells them that the skeptics are servants of the devil who should be ignored. He tells them that the fate of their everlasting souls depends upon unwavering commitment to the teachings of the new faith.
The believers endure many hardships on behalf of their new faith. They put their reputations, wealth, and at times even their lives at risk. They endure abuse and persecution from outsiders. This causes some to fall away, but those who remain are drawn closer together. They begin to see themselves as a separate people and they shun contact with the rest of society. Anyone who fails to maintain sufficient commitment to the teachings of the prophet is cast out as a heretic.
The new religion continues to spread and within the course of a couple hundred years, it has millions of adherents. Nevertheless, there is never a shred of credible evidence to support any of their supernatural beliefs.
I think that most scholars who believe that Jesus was a historical person would accept that this is a more or less reasonable characterization of the founding and spread of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (The exception would be those historical Jesus scholars who are also Mormons.) Nevertheless, most historicist scholars think it preposterous to suppose that any sort of similar dynamic could have been at work in the origin and early spread of Christianity rendering Jesus of Nazareth as complete a fabrication as Moroni, the Warrior-Prophet of the Nephites. They believe it reasonable to express a high degree of confidence that there was a historical person behind the visions that Paul and others claimed to have.
I will confess that I have purposely used ambiguous language in describing Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism in order to highlight the parallels with Paul and the origins of Christianity while obscuring the differences. I will also acknowledge that some of the differences may be of sufficient weight to justify belief in a historical Jesus while rejecting belief in a historical Moroni. Nevertheless, most of the reasons I usually see given for why Christianity couldn't have grown and spread in the way that it did without a historical Jesus seem to be predicated on the idea that 1st century Christians were markedly less gullible and superstitious than 19th century Mormons.
For example, a historicist might rightly point out that early Christians believed in a heavenly being who had walked the earth as a man within living memory while the first Mormons believed in a heavenly being who had walked the earth as a man fourteen hundred years earlier. The important point to me, however, is that the early Mormons believed in both the heavenly being and the man with absolutely no evidence whatsoever other than the word of Joseph Smith. Is there any way to establish that the earliest Christians had any better evidence than the word of Paul who had claimed to have seen the heavenly being but seemed to know almost nothing about the man who walked the earth?
Historicists can also point out that it would have been possible to investigate claims about an actual human being named Jesus who had walked the earth within living memory and that there would be people around who could debunk false claims. On the other hand, it was been possible to investigate many of Joseph Smith's claims as well and there were plenty of people who tried to expose him as a fraud. However, Smith managed to convince most of his followers that their eternal destinies rested on their willingness to ignore skeptics and unbelievers. As a result, the people who accepted Smith's claims without question were not deterred by the people who investigated them and found them wanting. Is there any reason to think that the earliest Christians wouldn't have been just as willing to ignore evidence that contradicted their beliefs?
Another difference that might be noted is that the experiences that corroborated Joseph Smith's encounter with the Angel Moroni and the Golden Plates took place after Smith's among his followers while the experiences that corroborate Paul's experience are thought to have taken place before Paul's among his predecessors. This might be significant, but the first account of the events that corroborate Paul's experience come from Paul himself some twenty years after they are thought to have occurred, while the accounts that corroborate Smith's experience are much closer in time to the events themselves, and are purportedly verified by the people who experienced them. I am not sure that this difference makes Paul's account the more credible one.
One of the differences that many scholars scholars cite as significant is the incongruity of a crucified Messiah to first century Judaism. Dr. James McGrath describes the argument this way:
My problem with this argument is that I an unaware of any objective criteria by which one would assess the probability that any particular supernatural story might be invented by a particular individual in a particular culture and the probability that the story might be believed by large numbers of his peers. Are historians really able to accurately identify the factors that distinguish a supernatural story that might be invented and believed in 19th century upstate New York from one that couldn't have been invented and believed in 1st century Palestine? When evaluating the probability that people of a particular culture might accept a particular story, can any evidence possibly be more significant than the fact that many of them did accept the story? Moreover, if it can be shown that large number of people did accept a story, how does one go about assigning a low probability to the possibility that someone might invent it?
All in all, I still see no reason to conclude that it is more likely than not that Jesus of Nazareth was a complete fabrication. The idea that the resurrection stories were the product of the cognitive dissonance experienced by the followers of a failed apocalyptic prophet seems perfectly plausible to me. Nevertheless, I have yet to see an argument that convinces me that there is any principled basis to assign a significantly higher probability to that than the possibility of invention by a uniquely imaginative personality. Hence, I remain agnostic about a historical Jesus.
A man with a charismatic and dynamic personality claims to be a prophet and claims to have had an encounter with a heavenly being who reveals previously unknown spiritual truths. The man claims that the heavenly being confirmed the revelation tangibly and physically. Some people are persuaded that the man is telling the truth while others think he is a crackpot. Even for skeptics it is hard to be certain whether he is a deluded lunatic, a pathological liar, or a charlatan.
The prophet claims that the heavenly being had once been a flesh and blood man who walked the earth and stories are invented about the man's activities. However, the initial focus of the earliest believers is on the new spiritual truths that have been revealed and the way in which these truths fulfill the holy writings that are already widely accepted in the culture. Some of the early believers also claim to have had physical and tangible experiences that corroborate the prophet's claims.
As time goes by, substantial numbers of people are converted to the new beliefs without the slightest bit of evidence to confirm the appearance of the heavenly being, the physical corroboration of the revelation, or the historicity of the stories about the heavenly being's activities when he walked the earth. All they have to rely on is the claims of the prophet and his earliest followers.
Many people in the surrounding community think that the prophet is a charlatan and that his claims are utter hogwash. These people try to persuade the believers of the foolishness of the prophet's claims. Some are convinced and fall away, but those who remain become even more fervent in their beliefs. The prophet tells them that the skeptics are servants of the devil who should be ignored. He tells them that the fate of their everlasting souls depends upon unwavering commitment to the teachings of the new faith.
The believers endure many hardships on behalf of their new faith. They put their reputations, wealth, and at times even their lives at risk. They endure abuse and persecution from outsiders. This causes some to fall away, but those who remain are drawn closer together. They begin to see themselves as a separate people and they shun contact with the rest of society. Anyone who fails to maintain sufficient commitment to the teachings of the prophet is cast out as a heretic.
The new religion continues to spread and within the course of a couple hundred years, it has millions of adherents. Nevertheless, there is never a shred of credible evidence to support any of their supernatural beliefs.
I think that most scholars who believe that Jesus was a historical person would accept that this is a more or less reasonable characterization of the founding and spread of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (The exception would be those historical Jesus scholars who are also Mormons.) Nevertheless, most historicist scholars think it preposterous to suppose that any sort of similar dynamic could have been at work in the origin and early spread of Christianity rendering Jesus of Nazareth as complete a fabrication as Moroni, the Warrior-Prophet of the Nephites. They believe it reasonable to express a high degree of confidence that there was a historical person behind the visions that Paul and others claimed to have.
I will confess that I have purposely used ambiguous language in describing Joseph Smith and the origins of Mormonism in order to highlight the parallels with Paul and the origins of Christianity while obscuring the differences. I will also acknowledge that some of the differences may be of sufficient weight to justify belief in a historical Jesus while rejecting belief in a historical Moroni. Nevertheless, most of the reasons I usually see given for why Christianity couldn't have grown and spread in the way that it did without a historical Jesus seem to be predicated on the idea that 1st century Christians were markedly less gullible and superstitious than 19th century Mormons.
For example, a historicist might rightly point out that early Christians believed in a heavenly being who had walked the earth as a man within living memory while the first Mormons believed in a heavenly being who had walked the earth as a man fourteen hundred years earlier. The important point to me, however, is that the early Mormons believed in both the heavenly being and the man with absolutely no evidence whatsoever other than the word of Joseph Smith. Is there any way to establish that the earliest Christians had any better evidence than the word of Paul who had claimed to have seen the heavenly being but seemed to know almost nothing about the man who walked the earth?
Historicists can also point out that it would have been possible to investigate claims about an actual human being named Jesus who had walked the earth within living memory and that there would be people around who could debunk false claims. On the other hand, it was been possible to investigate many of Joseph Smith's claims as well and there were plenty of people who tried to expose him as a fraud. However, Smith managed to convince most of his followers that their eternal destinies rested on their willingness to ignore skeptics and unbelievers. As a result, the people who accepted Smith's claims without question were not deterred by the people who investigated them and found them wanting. Is there any reason to think that the earliest Christians wouldn't have been just as willing to ignore evidence that contradicted their beliefs?
Another difference that might be noted is that the experiences that corroborated Joseph Smith's encounter with the Angel Moroni and the Golden Plates took place after Smith's among his followers while the experiences that corroborate Paul's experience are thought to have taken place before Paul's among his predecessors. This might be significant, but the first account of the events that corroborate Paul's experience come from Paul himself some twenty years after they are thought to have occurred, while the accounts that corroborate Smith's experience are much closer in time to the events themselves, and are purportedly verified by the people who experienced them. I am not sure that this difference makes Paul's account the more credible one.
One of the differences that many scholars scholars cite as significant is the incongruity of a crucified Messiah to first century Judaism. Dr. James McGrath describes the argument this way:
The reason that the crucifixion persuades most historians that Jesus was a historical figure is that a crucified messiah was in essence a contradiction in terms. . . . It needs to be emphasized that we are talking about a dying and rising messiah. And the messianic expectations of Judaism around the time of early Christianity are well documented. And the whole notion of messiah is “anointed one” . . . . and this goes back to the practice of anointing kings and priests in ancient Israel. And in the case of Jesus the connection of the terminology of the term messiah with the claim to his having been descended from David shows they were thinking of a kingly figure. And nothing would have disqualified someone from seriously being considered possibly being the messiah as being executed by the foreign rulers over the Jewish people. That wasn’t what people expected from the messiah. And it makes very little sense to claim that the early Christians invented a figure completely from scratch and called him the messiah and said that he didn’t do the same things that the messiah was expected. Not only did he not conquer the Romans, he was executed by them. He did not institute and bring in the kingdom of god the way the people were expecting, and in fact Christians had to explain this in terms of Jesus returning to finish the task of what was expected of the messiah.According to Dr. McGrath, belief in the resurrection was most likely a result of the cognitive dissonance that Jesus' followers experienced after he was put to death by Romans who he had been expected to conquer.
All of this makes much more sense if one says that there was a figure whom the early Christians believed was the messiah and that the early Christians were trying somehow to make sense of those things that don’t seem to fit that belief.
My problem with this argument is that I an unaware of any objective criteria by which one would assess the probability that any particular supernatural story might be invented by a particular individual in a particular culture and the probability that the story might be believed by large numbers of his peers. Are historians really able to accurately identify the factors that distinguish a supernatural story that might be invented and believed in 19th century upstate New York from one that couldn't have been invented and believed in 1st century Palestine? When evaluating the probability that people of a particular culture might accept a particular story, can any evidence possibly be more significant than the fact that many of them did accept the story? Moreover, if it can be shown that large number of people did accept a story, how does one go about assigning a low probability to the possibility that someone might invent it?
All in all, I still see no reason to conclude that it is more likely than not that Jesus of Nazareth was a complete fabrication. The idea that the resurrection stories were the product of the cognitive dissonance experienced by the followers of a failed apocalyptic prophet seems perfectly plausible to me. Nevertheless, I have yet to see an argument that convinces me that there is any principled basis to assign a significantly higher probability to that than the possibility of invention by a uniquely imaginative personality. Hence, I remain agnostic about a historical Jesus.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Sometimes Things Work Out Well
I couldn't help but think of Margaret O'Brien's line from Meet Me in St. Louis: "Wasn't I lucky to be born in my favorite city?"
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