I always think this is interesting… how we are constantly changing history as we change our worldviews. the fact is that Jesus was not important at the time of his death, but later, when the romans adopted the faith as their own, of course his status went up and he was re-written back into history. We can see this happening today with history. I can’t imagine a history of the civil rights movement for example now without referring to Ella Baker or Bayard Rustin, but Baker was especially ignored until Barbara Ransby’s book. I was in the King center not to long ago, and Rustin gets a passing mention and Baker is studiously ignored. Just one example how historians change their narratives to fit the times and to make a fuller account of the past.
Well stated LoDoBe
Frankly I’m bored by this now, the proposition is very uninteresting to me in and of itself, but as a show of good faith in conducting a reasoned debate on what information can be gleaned from the sources available, I’ll make a final pass in an attempt to summarise and underline my scepticism.
But not right now. I’ll replace this with the rest of my comment when I can summon the will to, in the words of the immortal Bill HIcks, ‘plough through this shit one more time’.
Ancient history is a large field with a medium learning curve (not as bad as, say Physics, but still involves years of background reading, the learning of a few languages, and a lot of careful study of many relevant topics), and like any other academic field it’s pretty dull to most people who aren’t really interested in digging into a lot of details. Unless you can read ancient Greek with a good level of facility you’ll be at a huge disadvantage in judging arguments about the debated passages in Josephus, and you’d also want to know about the early Syraic and Arabic translations made from a different MSS transmission than the later Greek versions with Christian corruptions, be familiar with Tacitus’ approach to historiography (and who he was in the context of his time to further inform your judgment), and study the history of the period enough to make some kind of informed judgment on the problems that will result in the different accounts that are offered. It’s pretty tedious for a typical person.
Like most other fields, a simple assumption like “if there’s no contemporary source we should assume non-existence” is initially intuitive, but turns into something much, much more complex when investigated in more detail and requires a very lengthy treatment to really do justice by the criteria of the field, since that assumption actually creates far more problems than it solves in ancient history (modern history is a different ball game there).
Great post Miasm!
I am sure you are aware–but for general discussion on this topic:
There are no primary, secondary, tertiary sources–or radio-carbon dated artifacts that validate the existence of Jesus.
Hopefully in your follow-up post you’ll give a nice account of the primary, secondary, tertiary sources and/or radio-carbon dated artifacts that serve as evidence for how Christianity developed from the Osiris, Horus, and Isis myths.
If no first-person documentation mentioning a specific event survived from a specific period, then no such event happened. The sun in actual fact never did set on the British Empire, for example, because I can’t find any Imperial documentation that specifically names Sol and says he went below the horizon. This is literally true - there were no sunsets anywhere in the British Empire, ever, except in that one place that Orwell lived, and only the ones he wrote about. We know this because the sun is very very important and thus would have been written about extensively.
Nothing happened at all before the invention of writing - nothing. Because absence of evidence is totally infallible evidence of absence, as previously demonstrated.
Er, yay for Pitcairn and its lovely inhabitants.
Well that depends on when you consider writing to have begun–or more specifically, when you were taught that writing began.
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone was perhaps the single most important discovery as it relates to learning about African-Kemetic/Anu (Egyptian/Ethiopian) history and culture.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered in 1799, it now sits in the British Museum, were it is one of the most interesting, intriguing and visited objects in the British Museum. It has three scripts carved into it, from top to bottom: 1. African-Kemetic Mdw-Ntr pronounced "medew netcher " (Hieroglyphics). 2. Demotic script (ancient African-Kemetic (Egyptian) and 3. Ancient Greek script.
The discovery of the Rosetta Stone allowed historians and anthropoligist’s to open up the “much older” history of Africa-Kemet/Anu to the world.
Well, I was taught that writing began in first grade, but my son started during kindergarten. I credit this to my practice of starting kids on the alphabet song when they’re less than 48 hours old.
The British museum has a very accurate copy of the Rosetta Stone set up in the library that they encourage people to fondle. It even has the proper British Imperial loot marking carved into it! I found it very pleasant to rest a fevered forehead on the cool, polished stone and I recommend the experience.
You are a valiant and steadfast proponent of Jesus. However your post signifies to even a laymen historian like me, let alone a tenured sholar of history, that you have no credible documentation of the existence of Jesus.
Scholars of African-Kemetic history learned from engagement and debate in the 1970’s that you do not make a case for the existence of a person or event, unless there are primary, secondary and tertiary sources backed up by radio-carbon dating.
Anthropology with its specific disciplines along with primary, secondary, tertiary sources and radio-carbon dating of artifacts, are how you validate the existence and occurrence of people and events.
In the case of Jesus, Moses, John the Baptist etc. etc. etc…hearsay, gossip, and second-hand rumors are not credible when validating historical people and events.
Note: The same thing applies to all religions on earth not just Christianity–all religions are
mythical.
I liked your post because it was witty.
The British Museum should be considered a crime scene-with all the African-Kemetic (Egyptian) artifacts they stole out of Africa–the only upside is they preserved the history of Africa.
The largest collection of African-Kemetic (Egyptian) artifacts outside Africa–found in the British Museum:
I disagree with you entirely regarding the historicity of Yeshuah the Nazarene, but I totally agree with you about the British Museum!
I’m a proponent of the historicity of Jesus, but certainly can’t say much about the guy.
The most significant reason I assume there was an actual person is because a reliable historian (Josephus) with no reason for bias (Romanized Jew who was apparently unaware of the early Christians and was uninvolved with them) gave an account of the trial of Jesus’ brother (in which Jesus was also mentioned) which happened during his lifetime (and was an event that was historically significant for Judaea). The passage shows every sign of being reliable that a normal historian would use (linguistically consistent, good MSS tradition, additional early sources citing it uncorrupted, etc.). How would you classify that source in your schema? If Jesus’ brother has a primary source good enough for asserting existence, then I can’t come up with any reasonable explanation for why Jesus wouldn’t have existed. Can you?
I like the idea that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I’m quite prepared to accept that there’s someone behind the Jesus stories. We’re dealing with inaccurate, exaggerated details and can’t trust the sources, but it makes more sense to me that the stories came from one person and were garnished with themes from contemporary religions than that they come from several amalgamated Jesuses or the story was invented to make Egyptian gods look like failed provincial religious teachers. A lot of historical figures have less evidence, so I’m not going to start with the premise that practically nobody existed until a thousand years ago or so. More evidence may come to light that gives a more plausible hypothesis, but so far all I hear is doubt as to the accuracy of the information (which I think everyone here accepts).
The claim that Jesus was anything special is much bigger though, and it does require some pretty solid evidence that just isn’t there. I recently had a conversation with a Christian I know who claimed that the evidence for Jesus is greater than that for Julius Caesar. It’s an old chestnut and obviously false (I mean, we do have Julius Caesar’s memoirs and coins with his face on them etc.), but I’d be willing to believe that quite a bit of the information we have about him is legend. I’m not going to put that much faith in the evidence and it won’t change my life, in any case.
I was also asked whether I would believe if Jesus walked into the room where we were. Probably not, because even then I couldn’t confirm who this “Jesus” was and any signs would just look like magic tricks. I really don’t know what kind of documentary evidence or persuasion would make any difference here. Even physical evidence - what would convince you that the life of Jesus should make much of a difference to your own life?
Good we find common ground on one issue.
Christian values are what everyone wants, peace, love, forgiveness, salvation.
Human nature without Christianity is pretty harsh.
Me, I’ll take Jesus. Merry Christmas.
And if you disagree, let’s talk again in 20 years in a non Christian Europe and America.
I think one thing an academic study of the time period and the manuscript tradition will say with much clarity is that the synoptic gospels are incredibly inconsistent, loaded with anachronisms, and not at all reliable as anything but faint, muddled, corrupted, confused echoes of events that happened long before they were written with evolving biases and changes that occur over time from the earliest to the latest text. But the same reasoning about history that could bring a person willing to look at things from the perspective of modern scholarship that makes the case for Jesus having once existed also completely invalidates the religious account those texts offer. Despite the various authors’ clumsy attempts, they even pathetically fail to fulfill the prophecies in Daniel, etc. that they clumsily tried to wedge in. And, yeah, archaeological/numismatic evidence is the gold standard for history, all texts are inherently much more complex given that authors can be biased/selective, and the way they were transmitted by hand copying is inherently messy (critical texts of ancient sources are full of notes for variations in wording and sections that are missing in some MSSs).
If Jesus walked into a room I’d assume I was in a prank or an hallucination. The more you know about the history and texts, the less persuasive the religious account is - look at Bart Ehrman, he started in a Seminary but familiarity with the texts and transmission were enough for him to walk away, and he’s not alone.
I disagree right now that ‘Human nature without Christianity is pretty harsh’.
Christianity contains some values (as you mentioned) that are part of goodness, yes, but also has been used by many to rationalize horrible, horrible things.
You don’t need some deity in the sky to be a delightful, kind person…It’s the people that need some kind of threat of damnation or some simple and non-situational definition of morality that terrify the heck out of me.
If Jesus walked into my room there is only one thing I could possibly say.
(Waits patiently)
